VIRTUAL

DRAMA
Notes On Creating
Living Story Worlds

By Cat Hébert

An introduction to the concepts, prospects, and

problems of fully immersive virtual reality storytelling

”A non-technical textbook for a non-existent story form”

Virtual Drama
Notes on Creating Living Story Worlds
Volume I: Virtual Drama Concepts

Copyright 2003-2008 by Bruce Cat Hébert

All Rights Reserved
 Volume I

Virtual Drama
Concepts
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication, 2008 Preface, 2003 Preface, Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................................... I
We Are Creatures Who Talk, Fantasize, and Dream ......................................................................................... i
A Definition of Virtual Drama .......................................................................................................................... i
Who May Find These Notes Of Interest ........................................................................................................... ii
Speculating with Black-Box Technology .......................................................................................................... ii
How These Notes Are Organized..................................................................................................................... ii
STORY-EXAMPLE: A TYPICAL DAY WITH THE SMITH FAMILY .................................................................................. 1

VIRTUAL CHARACTERS ......................................................................................................................................... 11

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 12
HOW THIS SECTION WILL PROCEED ........................................................................................................................... 12
THE NATURE OF VIRTUAL CHARACTERS ...................................................................................................................... 12
CATEGORIZING VIRTUAL CHARACTERS ........................................................................................................................ 13
Virtual Character Types By Appearance ........................................................................................................ 13
Virtual Character Types By Function ............................................................................................................. 14
Specialized Dram Characters ........................................................................................................................ 14
Story Characters........................................................................................................................................... 15
THE HUMANOSITY OF VIRTUAL CHARACTERS ............................................................................................................... 16
1) Physicalization ......................................................................................................................................... 17
2) Communication ........................................................................................................................................ 19
3) Individuation ............................................................................................................................................ 20
4) Socialization ............................................................................................................................................. 21
5) Vocation /Avocation................................................................................................................................. 22
FIXED-SCRIPT CHARACTERS.................................................................................................................................. 23
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................... 23
Story Experiences Using Fixed-Script Characters ........................................................................................... 23
DEVELOPING FIXED SCRIPT CHARACTERS ..................................................................................................................... 24
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 28
AUTOMATED CHARACTERS .................................................................................................................................. 31
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................... 31
How This Chapter Will Proceed ..................................................................................................................... 31
EXTENDING EXISTING CHARACTERS............................................................................................................................ 32
DESIGNING AUTOMATED CHARACTER PERSONALITIES .................................................................................................... 33
Personality Systems Approaches................................................................................................................... 36
LIFE DATABASES AND LIFE RULES .............................................................................................................................. 38
A Simple But Useful Applied Life Rules System .............................................................................................. 39
Dialogue And Non-Verbal Behavior Generators ............................................................................................ 39
SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AMONG AUTOMATED CHARACTERS .............................................................................................. 41
AUTOMATED CHARACTERS AND TRAVELERS ................................................................................................................ 47
Learning In Automated Characters ............................................................................................................... 49
Modularizing Automated Characters ............................................................................................................ 50
CONTROLLING AUTOMATED CHARACTERS ................................................................................................................... 51
DO-IT-YOURSELF CHARACTERS ................................................................................................................................. 54
INDEPENDENT CHARACTERS ................................................................................................................................ 57
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................... 57
How This Chapter Will Proceed ..................................................................................................................... 57
THE EIGHT STAGES OF CHARACTER INDEPENDENCE ....................................................................................................... 58
Stage 1: Appearance and Movement ............................................................................................................ 58
Stage 2: Biophysical Abilities ........................................................................................................................ 59
Stage 3: Sensing and Sense Memory ............................................................................................................. 59
Stage 4: Speech & Nonverbals ...................................................................................................................... 60
Stage 5: Personality...................................................................................................................................... 62
Stage 6: Reasoning & Learning ..................................................................................................................... 63
Stage 7: Imagination and Creativity .............................................................................................................. 64
Stage 8: Decision Making (Virtual People)..................................................................................................... 65
THE WELLS-WYNDHAM TESTS ................................................................................................................................. 66
Wells Tests for Individual Characters ............................................................................................................ 66
Wyndham Tests for Virtual Communities ...................................................................................................... 66
DEVELOPING INDEPENDENT CHARACTERS.................................................................................................................... 67
Sampling Approaches................................................................................................................................... 68
Social Systems Simulations ........................................................................................................................... 69
Incubation Techniques.................................................................................................................................. 70
Specialized Communities of Independent Characters..................................................................................... 72
CONTROLLING INDEPENDENT CHARACTERS .................................................................................................................. 74
Embedded Controls ...................................................................................................................................... 74
Environmental Controls ................................................................................................................................ 75
In-Story Controls .......................................................................................................................................... 76
CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................................... 76
DRAM SPACES & OBJECTS .................................................................................................................................... 77

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................... 79
DRAM SPACES & OBJECTS....................................................................................................................................... 79
HOW THIS SECTION WILL PROCEED ........................................................................................................................... 79
A SCENE ............................................................................................................................................................. 80
PROPERTIES OF SPACES IN DRAMS ...................................................................................................................... 82
PERCEIVING SPACE ................................................................................................................................................ 82
Our Senspace ............................................................................................................................................... 82
Individual Perceptual Differences.................................................................................................................. 84
THE REALITY OF DRAM SPACES & OBJECTS.................................................................................................................. 85
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 85
Common-Sense Tests of Spatial “Reality”...................................................................................................... 86
Sense Memory ............................................................................................................................................. 87
MOVING THROUGH SPACE ...................................................................................................................................... 88
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 88
Movement Apparatus For Drams.................................................................................................................. 88
Individual Movement Characteristics ............................................................................................................ 91
Movement Re-Directed by the Space Itself .................................................................................................... 91
Specialized Navigation in Drams ................................................................................................................... 94
Movement Memory ..................................................................................................................................... 94
INTERACTING WITH OTHERS IN SPACE ........................................................................................................................ 95
Key Interactions ........................................................................................................................................... 95
STORYTELLING USES OF SPACES IN DRAMS .................................................................................................................. 97
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 97
Providing Story Information.......................................................................................................................... 97
 Guiding Story Flow ..................................................................................................................................... 100
PROPERTIES OF DRAM OBJECTS......................................................................................................................... 103
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. 103
Sensing Objects .......................................................................................................................................... 104
Motion in Objects....................................................................................................................................... 106
INTERACTION BETWEEN TRAVELERS AND DRAM OBJECTS .............................................................................................. 107
The Perceived Reality of Objects ................................................................................................................. 107
Levels of Interaction with dram Objects ...................................................................................................... 108
Object Memory .......................................................................................................................................... 109
STORYTELLING USES OF OBJECTS IN DRAMS ............................................................................................................... 109
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 109
Dram Objects as Social and Personal Indicators .......................................................................................... 109
Dram Objects in Story Flow ........................................................................................................................ 111
ADVANCED USES OF DRAM SPACES & OBJECTS ................................................................................................. 114
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. 114
INTELLIGENT SPACES & OBJECTS ............................................................................................................................. 114
Space & Object Intelligence Example: A Fairly Intelligent Room................................................................... 115
MOOD ENHANCED SPACES & OBJECTS ..................................................................................................................... 116
Mood Enhancement Techniques for Drams ................................................................................................. 118
USING REAL-WORLD SPACES & OBJECTS IN DRAMS .................................................................................................... 119
SPACE & OBJECTS USED IN SELECTED STORY GENRES .................................................................................................. 121
Spatial Requirements for Specific Story Genres ........................................................................................... 121
Examples of Spaces and Objects in Story Genres ......................................................................................... 121
DESIGNING DRAM SPACES AND OBJECTS .......................................................................................................... 125
BUILDING BRIGADOON CITY .................................................................................................................................. 125
Digital Spaces and Objects Databank (DISPOD) ........................................................................................... 125
Open Object and Place Standards (OOPS) for Drams ................................................................................... 126
SAMPLING AND STANDARDIZATION ......................................................................................................................... 126
SPECIALIZED DESIGN ELEMENTS .............................................................................................................................. 127
DO-IT-YOURSELF SPACES AND OBJECTS .................................................................................................................... 129
FLOW IN DRAMS ................................................................................................................................................ 131

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................. 133

THE NATURE OF FLOW ......................................................................................................................................... 133
HOW THIS SECTION WILL PROCEED ......................................................................................................................... 134
FLOW IN STORIES ............................................................................................................................................... 135
Story forms to be examined ........................................................................................................................ 135
ORAL TRADITION STORIES ..................................................................................................................................... 135
WRITTEN STORIES ............................................................................................................................................... 137
The Short Story........................................................................................................................................... 138
The Novel ................................................................................................................................................... 139
ACTED-OUT STORIES ........................................................................................................................................... 139
Theater ...................................................................................................................................................... 140
Film ........................................................................................................................................................... 141
Television ................................................................................................................................................... 142
INTERACTIVE ACTED-OUT STORIES .......................................................................................................................... 143
Children’s Theater ...................................................................................................................................... 143
Interactive Theater..................................................................................................................................... 144
 Improvisation ............................................................................................................................................. 146
REALITY TV ....................................................................................................................................................... 147
STORY FLOW IN DRAMS..................................................................................................................................... 149
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. 149
A Brief Review of the Dram Process ............................................................................................................ 149
How this Topic Will Proceed ....................................................................................................................... 149
PRE-STORY FLOW ............................................................................................................................................... 150
Scouting for Dram Experiences ................................................................................................................... 150
Selecting Specific Dram Features ................................................................................................................ 152
Doing Pre-Testing....................................................................................................................................... 159
GOING THROUGH IMMERSION ............................................................................................................................... 162
Using Story World Controls......................................................................................................................... 163
Movement Controls.................................................................................................................................... 164
Environmental Controls .............................................................................................................................. 165
Communication Controls ............................................................................................................................ 166
Story Controls ............................................................................................................................................ 169
IN-STORY FLOW ................................................................................................................................................. 170
Entering the Story ...................................................................................................................................... 170
Learning to Be Part of the Story world ........................................................................................................ 171
Interacting with Story Characters ............................................................................................................... 173
Interacting with Other Travelers ................................................................................................................. 177
Experiencing the Story ................................................................................................................................ 178
POST-STORY FLOW ............................................................................................................................................. 183
Ending the Story ......................................................................................................................................... 183
Returning to the “Real” World .................................................................................................................... 184
MEASURING STORY FLOW IN DRAMS ................................................................................................................ 187
BASIC UNITS OF STORY FLOW IN DRAMS .................................................................................................................. 187
PATTERNS OF STORY FLOW IN DRAMS ..................................................................................................................... 191
Maze Story Flow Overview ......................................................................................................................... 191
Maze Story Flow Examples ......................................................................................................................... 193
Ripple Story Flow Overview ........................................................................................................................ 194
Ripple Story Flow Examples ........................................................................................................................ 196
Community Story Flow Overview ................................................................................................................ 197
Community Story Flow Examples ................................................................................................................ 198
FLOW WRAP-UP ................................................................................................................................................ 199
WHY DEVELOP VIRTUAL DRAMA?...................................................................................................................... 200
FINANCIAL FACTORS ............................................................................................................................................ 200
Financial Rewards ...................................................................................................................................... 200
Financial Problems ..................................................................................................................................... 201
TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS .................................................................................................................................... 202
Tech Rewards............................................................................................................................................. 202
Tech Problems............................................................................................................................................ 203
ARTISTIC FACTORS .............................................................................................................................................. 203
Current Artistic Trends................................................................................................................................ 203
Artistic Rewards ......................................................................................................................................... 204
Artistic Problems ........................................................................................................................................ 205
HUMANISTIC FACTORS ......................................................................................................................................... 205
Humanistic Rewards................................................................................................................................... 205
Humanistic Problems.................................................................................................................................. 206
The Grand Unification Industry ................................................................................................................... 206
VOLUME ONE WRAP-UP .................................................................................................................................... 209
THE NOTES SO FAR ............................................................................................................................................. 209
INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES....................................................................................................... 210
LOOKING FORWARD ............................................................................................................................................ 211
GLOSSARY OF TERMS ......................................................................................................................................... 213

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ......................................................................................................................................... 218

Dedication
To theater director Albert Benzwie and management guru Shiv Gupta –– two intensely global minds with
whom I spent many happy hours arguing about the future of technology and its effect on our upstart
species. They would have disagreed vehemently and vocally with some of the ideas implied by these
Notes. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

2008 Preface
Although the current version of these Notes was completed in 2003 (with a much shorter account
circulated in 2001), public interest in virtual reality has been fickle, and so I decided to hold release until I
felt immersive storytelling was at least a blip on the radar of entertainment.
Several of those blips have recently appeared:
 The vibrancy and commercialization of the Second Life virtual community.
 The move toward theatrical 3D and Interactive TV, and technical developments such such as
Tachi Labs Twister.
 The extraordinary growth of reality TV, with its built-in wealth of character information.
 Increased sophistication of 3D interactive animation and gaming environments and the
acceptance of complex, non-violent story worlds such as the Sims series and the children of Wii.
 An entire generation‘s fascination with, and participation in, You-Tube and other video media –
which signals the desire to control content.
 Multi-lingual voice recognition that is, I am told, on the threshold of commercialization.
 The imminent opening of IBM‘s ―nanotech‖ performance space in New York State.
Certain of the developments I hint at in these Notes are close to realization, and others seem farfetched.
Me? I‘m trying to decipher handwriting on legal pads,illegal pads, the backs of envelopes, and, yes, ten
year old napkins with shoyu stains, as I start to pull together Volume II.

Cat Hébert
Atlanta, Georgia
06/07/08
2003 Preface
In 1990 someone I had only met once called from California to tell me that the ability to immerse people
in computer environments where they could interact with each other and with computer-generated
characters was a "happenin' thing, dude". I suppose she made a point of mentioning this because during
my years as an experimental theater director I had talked endlessly about needing more interaction
between audiences and characters.
Knowing that this new technology was custom-designed for my work, but thinking that I really needed to
know more about computers, I headed to New York City, where I almost immediately (and somewhat
miraculously) landed work creating simple programs for spreadsheets and databases, and began to learn
some of the vocabulary of computer software. By 1992 I realized that the development of immersive
computer environments (virtual reality or virtual environments) was still very much the playground of
computer graphics programmer/engineers, but that the field was definitely "happenin', dude", so I dredged
up old notes about interactive dramatic forms and began to think about ways of putting virtual reality to
work as a story form: "Virtual Drama".
I remember those first days of brainstorming very well — I spent them in Central Park perched on the
boulders behind the Delacorte Theater as they built a set for the New York Shakespeare Festival. My
perch was about as 3-D as you can get: techies dangling by harnesses to hang stage lights; sunbathers
along the shore of the artificial lake to the right of the theater, softball and football games behind them,
and, against the horizon, old groves of trees where voodoo devotees had recently been arrested for
performing "unlicensed" animal sacrifices. It was interactive, too, because tourists, seeing someone deep
in thought on the edge of a cliff, somehow felt compelled to interrupt to ask what I was doing. I usually
wound up asking them how they would react to "talking with computer characters". A surprising number
of people offered useful suggestions, although most came up with ways of avoiding work or enhancing
their love lives.
Eight and a half years – and one disastrous macro-virus later — I found myself with hundreds of pages of
written notes and enough dram (short for Virtual Dramas) scenario outlines to make me feel like the Don
Quixote of future drama.
I also found myself with a problem: how could I explain a new, 3-D immersive story form (in writing!) to
readers who are likely to come from very different technical areas within the entertainment, computer,
and other hi-tech industries –– not to mention those futurists and think-tankers who have traditionally
given the arts a very wide berth? Virtual Drama is a new and powerful story form: one with the flexibility
to appropriate the techniques of most existing story forms, the technical allure to spearhead the testing of
a whole host of new computer technologies, and, perhaps, just perhaps, the scope to help unify the arts,
sciences, and humanities.
My answer is these Notes, which you might think of as ―A non-technical introduction to the concepts,
prospects, and problems of virtual reality storytelling ―, or, as a friend put it: ―A non-technical textbook
for a non-existent story form.‖. Here I present my own, limited, and somewhat idiosyncratic vision of
story worlds where we can work, learn, and play together.

Cat Hébert
Bucks County, Pennsylvania
01/02/03
Acknowledgements
A project which has for various reasons spanned some ten years requires a lot of thank you‘s, so I‘m
acknowledging the help and inspiration of lots of people, places, and organizations.
People. To cyber-friend and interactive writing teacher Gloria Stern, whose continuing support and
understanding was a consistent presence during the years of fidgeting with these Notes. To Barbara
Bornmann, Charlie Kessler, Harvey Kravetz, Nancy Azaria, Colin Wolfe, Frank Burns, Dave & Pat
Usner, Josh McIlvain, and the folks at Brick Playhouse, Fly-By-Night, Central YMCA, and Pennsport AC
who helped keep me more-or-less sane. To writers Foster Winans, Linda King, and David Sherman who
have asked each time we‘ve met ―So, when are you going to finish the damned thing?‖ To all those folks
who said ―cool‖ when I told them what I was writing.
To the many researchers with whom I‘ve had quiet conversations over the years, and who made writing
these Notes seem less silly: from MIT, Stanford, HITL, Drexel, University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie
Mellon, Georgia Tech, University of Goteborg, University of Edinburgh, Bell Labs, Microsoft, Columbia
University, Cambridge University, University of London, Xerox Parc, MIRALab, DARPA and many
others.
To the late, great NYC Museum of Holography for insight into the difficulties of true 3D; to the
Philadelphia Crosswaves Festival for sponsoring my online interactive performance experiments ––
featuring Bernie Roehl, Stu Harris, Brad Brace, Alistair Martin-Smith, Linda Lough, Caroline & Dan
West, and others. To Juli Burk at AtheMoo and the international crew of lag-time performers and
researchers in virtual theater. To WWWAC (VR, Broadcast, and Writing SIGS) and to the Philadelphia
Area New Media Association, organizations where new ideas are discussed with fervor –– and booze.
To Lars Erik Holmquist, Glorianna Davenport, Maureen Thomas, and the lively crew at the Future of
Fun Workshop in Goteborg, Sweden.
Backstory: To the visiting lecturers from the University of Edinburgh who first introduced me to the
potential of ―Machine Intelligence. To the bright and voluble souls I met in Cambridge, UK. To the
therapy brain trust at Essalen. To psycholgists Erik Erikson, Jay Haley, Salvador Minuchin, Donald O.
Hebb, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, and the Psychodrama Institute, whose work informed my approach to
character personality. To Buckminster Fuller, who taught me that high-visualizers have to learn to
translate. To the Wharton School: Jim Emshof and Doug Stern who convinced me of the power of
audience expectations –– on Columbia Pictures dime; and to Chris Ritz, who showed me that utopias
have to be built and maintained. To Don Treffinger and the folks at Buffalo State Creativity Center and
the Creative Problem Solving Institute –– who actually think world problems can be solved, and that
children are an important part of the answer.
Places/Organizations. To the Cafeteria by the Boat Pond in Central Park and the Mozart Café off
Lincoln Center, where a lot of these ideas were first outlined, and to Cyberloft Café (Mostafa Eldefrawy),
South Café, Java Café and Cosi restaurants in Philadelphia, where I did a lot of techno-shmoozing and
writing. To The Writers Room of Bucks County, where I spent many hours struggling with the concept of
―Flow‖. To Tiger Information Systems (Jeff Shlager and Jamie), Goldman Sachs (Marc Herold), Charles
Kessler & Associates, Dr. Michael Teplisky, Student-Aid (Jim Johnston & Janice Szwanski), Manpower
(Jennifer & Christine), Aon Graphics (Nanci, & Marla), F.A. Davis Publishing (Mike, Ralph, Kirk,
Kelly, & Rita), the late Alice Hebert, Adecco(Cirque du Soleil), the University of Pennsylvania (Marilyn
Lucas), and the U.S. Department of Labor (Steve Stefanko, Barbara Shelly) who collectively helped keep
the wolf from coming all the way into the living room.
Things. To my IBM Thinkpad 755CD laptop, which somehow survived until 2003. To the Dell Axim 5.0
and XPS 1210 that carried me the rest of the way.
 Virtual Drama | i

INTRODUCTION

We Are Creatures Who Talk, Fantasize, and Dream

If you think about it, we spend about 90 percent of our time during a typical day talking and fantasizing
about people, places and events that aren't present. During sleep we spend part of the time actively
dreaming, and the rest of the time doing — who knows what?
One of our more persistent fantasies is to be able to make the world of our imagination real: to converse
with people we will never know; to learn skills no one seems likely to teach us; to experience adventures
we have neither the will nor the resources to undertake.
Some of our most popular storytelling genres — such as action-adventures and mysteries — tap directly
into the most farfetched of these fantasies: larger-than-life men and women with elaborate arrays of
specialized skills travel to exotic places and do impossible things. Less hectic story genres — like
situation comedies and family dramas — deal with quieter fantasies: solving the pain of loss, accepting
the improbability of relationships, learning that others doubt, forget, risk, laugh, and survive.
Right now, elaborate computer, communication, optical, mechanical, and nano-building technologies are
being developed that will allow us to fully and physically immerse ourselves in stories. The worlds are
called "virtual environments".
I call the storytelling form of virtual environments "Virtual Drama", the stories themselves “drams”,
and the audience participants “travelers”.
2008 Note: In earlier versions of this work – written during the demise of video in favor of DVD – I referred to the
stories as ―vids‖. The wonderful explosion of personal videos engendered by ―You Tube‖ and its competitors re-
established video as a form, and voila, the term ―vids‖ was taken. The actual terms that come to be used for immersive
drama are likely to be both surprising and appropriate. Ask anyone who ―googles‖ for information online:).

A Definition of Virtual Drama

Virtual Drama is a storytelling form in which the audience members ("travelers") are immersed in three
dimensional, sensorily plausible, computer-generated or mediated worlds where they are able to
communicate with characters and other travelers, alter events, and physically interact with characters,
places, spaces, and objects.
In advanced versions of Virtual Drama, travelers should also be able to create their own worlds and
characters, examine the senses, minds and personal histories of characters (character surfing/
hitching/diving) transcend time and space (time/ space diving), and re-live the history of places, spaces,
and objects (object/ space diving).
You'll be able to get a bit clearer sense of what I'm talking about from the story-example entitled "A Day
in the Life of the Smith Family", below, but for now you can think of Virtual Drama as a story form
which will eventually make environments like the Star Trek "holodeck" — where people live in
storyworlds that look and feel totally real — a regular part of our lives.
 Virtual Drama | ii

Since the structures and technologies necessary to produce all of this aren't going to be developed
overnight, I also tend to include in a practical definition of Virtual Drama dramatic forms which lie
somewhere between theater/film/TV and fully immersive dramatic experiences.
For a description of virtual storytelling up to 1997, I‘d suggest taking a look at ―Hamlet on the
Holodeck‖ by Janet Murray. For a theoretical discussion of the use of virtual environments in work and
play see ―Hyper Reality: Paradigm for the Third Millenium‖, edited by John Tiffin and Nobuyoshi
Terashima. For a hands-on introduction to character/society development, try joining ―Second Life‖ or
using one of ―The Sims‖ environments by pioneer virtual community developer Will Wright.

Who May Find These Notes Of Interest

I was prompted to write these Notes because of my long-standing interest and involvement in creating
interactive dramatic experiences, but as my thoughts took shape, it struck me that Virtual Drama‘s
potential to marry technological innovation to global creativity, learning, and communication is
enormous.
I also became convinced that the commercial development and marketing of Virtual Drama will be more
successful if the vision-goal held by researchers and developers is sophisticated, complex, and far-
reaching –– capable of producing thousands of new products and services (and the jobs that go along with
them), not just a few hi-tech cartoons.
You can think of these Notes as my way of trying to influence those vision-goals by presenting my own
thoughts as a vehicle for discussion, debate, and action. The Notes are highly personal and speculative
and, for this reason, contain virtually no references.
Those most likely to be interested in these Notes are futurists, technically-oriented storytellers such as
filmmakers and animators, interdisciplinary theorists, media-techno-pundits, holodeck enthusiasts,
always-adverturesome technology students, and, of course, those already doing research in virtual reality,
computer-based character development, and other areas related to Virtual Drama.

Speculating with Black-Box Technology

If someone uses rice pudding to create an exoskeleton that lets people climb virtual mountains, that‘s just
fine with me. The function of these Notes is to suggest general approaches for immersive storytelling
rather than to design products, so the concepts, techniques, examples and story ideas I present here rely on
no particular hardware, software, or engineering technologies — although I do sometimes give in to the
temptation to discuss possibilities. I only assume that dram participants (travelers) will be able to
completely sense and interact with the world of the story, and that computer-like systems will be largely
responsible for creating worlds and characters.

How These Notes Are Organized

When you‘re speculating about a new story form, there‘s a lot of ground to cover, so I‘ve divided these
Notes into two volumes:
Volume One introduces basic ideas about Virtual Drama
- Virtual Characters and Virtual People
- Immersive Spaces and Objects
- Story Flow: moment-to-moment interactions between story travelers and the storyworld
- Financial, technological, artistic, and humanistic reasons for developing the form
 Virtual Drama | iii

- Lots of examples and mini-scenarios throughout

Volume Two deals with Virtual Drama in the real world, and will include:
- Creating the Dram Development Team
- Scenario Development Requirements and Examples
- Using Drams In Education, Work, And Therapy
- Legal and Safety Issues
- Marketing And Sales Strategies
- Appendix: Using Drams in Specific Occupations
Other Publications. I also plan to blog on many of these topics and, if time and interest permits, to
turn some specialized notes into briefer publications, such as:
- A guide to help instructors to use the book ―Virtual Drama‖ as a lead-in to discussion of current
technologies and interdisciplinary strategies;
- Lists of potential research projects with links to websites which deal with the various
technologies and philosophies necessary to develop Virtual Drama;
- Scenario developers‘ checklists;
- Detailed scenario outlines.

Volume One Section Descriptions

Introduction
A Definition of Virtual Drama. An overview of Volumes I and II and chapter descriptions for Volume I.
A story-example ―A Day in the Life of the Smith Family‖ introduces uses of Virtual Drama.

Virtual Characters, Virtual People

A far-ranging discussion of the sorts of characters that will be useful in immersive storytelling, including
the role of traveler-character interaction, the ―Eight levels of character ‗independence‘‖, and a detailed
introduction to scripted, automated, and fully independent characters. The Wells and Wyndham tests for
virtual characters and communities are introduced.

Dram Spaces & Objects

Storytelling spaces and objects will have specific requirements in immersive environments. After
introducing some basic aspects of human space and movement, I take a look at how spaces and objects
might be used in dram environments, then tackle specific story genres, such as mysteries. Finally, there‘s
a brief description of do-it-yourself storyworlds.

Flow in Virtual Drama

The interaction between story travelers and the storyworld — ―story flow‖ — is crucial for experiences
that might extend over a period of years. I examine story flow as it operates in a number of existing story
forms, and then take a detailed look at the immersive storytelling process for drams — starting from the
point where a traveler chooses which dram to experience and dons equipment, and extending to post-
experience decisions. Finally, I introduce some basic flow measurement units and discuss three major
patterns of flow in drams — maze, ripple, and community –– along with several scenario premise
 Virtual Drama | iv

examples for each pattern.

Why Develop Virtual Drama

Financial, technological, artistic, and humanistic incentives for developing Virtual Drama.

Volume I Wrap-Up

Glossary of Terms
 Virtual Drama | 1

Story-Example: A Typical Day

With the Smith Family
In the following story-example I present some of the more obvious features of virtual drama (or ‖dram‖)
spaces, equipment, and characters, with a bit more emphasis on ways virtual drama might be integrated
into daily life than on entertainment uses of drams, of which there are numerous examples throughout
these Notes.

The Queen in the Wetroom

Maria brushed aside the heavy curtain of leaves and walked into the waterfall. Parrots complained
loudly in the background, and at the top of nearby trees, peculiar blue monkeys skittered from branch to
branch. After a leisurely shower, Maria poured oil out of a coconut to wash her hair and as she began to
rinse, the sound of a distant drum floated through the birdsong.
She sighed and spoke to the nearest tree. ―I hear you, Gwen. I‘m ready ... I guess.‖
The tree morphed into a gently smiling woman with long, plaited blonde hair and courtly medieval
dress.
―You‘re looking well this morning,‖ the woman said.
―Let‘s get it over with, hunh, Gwen?‖ Maria said as she grabbed a towel from a nearby branch.
Gwen sighed and started to run through Maria‘s daily schedule, which displayed on the wall beside
her. ―You have breakfast, blah, blah. I suggest you buy a thousand shares of FabrikTech at 9:15. Then
you canoe Miller Creek looking for non-organic pollutants. You‘ll have travelers from the Ecology
Institute observing you.‖
Maria took her working clothes–shorts and a cotton top–off of a large, unnaturally flat rock and
began to dress. ―Gwen, as long as I have to use the canoe, why don‘t you come along? Or do you have a
tryst with Launcelot today?‖
Gwen blushed and turned away. ―No, not today. I love the canoe.‖
Do any of us have anything planned for tonight?‖ Maria asked.
―The whole family at WorldView Café at six. Remember?‖
―Oh, no!. I don‘t have anything clean to wear.‖
Gwen said ―Yes you do. Come on, I‘ll show you.‖
Maria gingerly stepped over the tiny ducks playing in the eddies of the shower drain and padded
barefoot behind the long train of Guenevere‘s gown.
 Virtual Drama | 2

The Grasshopper and the Sand Worm

Nils, in a pair of fraying shorts and a sweat-stained top, ran across the desert toward a grove of trees.
Behind him the ground bulged upward and sent a flurry of glass-sharp sand into his arm. Something down
there was chasing him. He increased speed, zigzagged right and left so he wouldn‘t leave a scent, then
hurtled through the trees. The bulging ground burst with the head of a giant worm, which slithered out of
its burrow to pursue him. Nils wiped the sweat from his hands, and with some effort used a conveniently
placed vine to swing across a small ravine. The river was almost in sight. ―Hurry up!‖ called a raspy voice
in his ear. ―Hurry up!‖ The worm licked at his heels. Nils reached the edge of the water and dove into it.
As it smelled the water, the worm came to a sudden halt and reconsidered the chase. It roared its
disapproval as only a giant sandworm can. Nils began the half mile swim to shore at a rapid pace–trailing
a thin flume of blood behind him.
The door of the dram room peeked open and Maria looked in. Nils, wrapped in a multilayer
bubblesuit and suspended in mid-air from the extended arms of a skeletal ―grasshopper‖, was swimming
as though his life depended on it. She smiled and closed the door behind her.
The support arms of the grasshopper adjusted slightly, and Nils crawled forward and stood up on the
surface of the gelwalker treadmill, which adapted its surface so that he appeared to be trudging through
shallow water.
Nils took off his sensmask and the top part of his bubblesuit, eased himself out of the grasshopper
harness, and looked toward an alcove in the corner of the dram room. A wizard figure appeared in the
alcove.
―How did I do?‖ asked Nils.
―You‘re bleeding,‖ said the wizard, ―all down your arm.‖ Nils examined the streaks of blood, looked
up sheepishly, and shrugged.
The wizard shook his head. ―I thought we said ‗no bleeding‘. Didn‘t I remember us agreeing ‗no
bleeding‘?‖
―Yeah,‖ said Nils. ―These are just scratches. Just ... light scratches.‖
―Where was your GuardianAngel when this ‗light scratching‘ was going on?‖
Nils made a thumbs-up gesture toward the wall and twin sprays of water shot out.
―Well. You can kind of disable the Angel in some of these exercise drams.‖ He stepped between the
sprays and began to shower.
The wizard expanded to a furious size. ―What!?‖
Nils reached through the shower spray, took a thin film out of a pocket in the wall and placed it on his
arm. The film formed itself into a thinnish cartoon dog, padded up to the scratches and began to lap at
them. Nils never could avoid buying the kids‘ versions of ―serious‖ products.
Nils continued. ―I mean, you can disable it for light bleeding. Any major damage and they shut it
down.‖ He tapped the floor controls to start the cleanup. ―How well did I score?‖
The wizard gestured ―so-so‖ with his head. ―Better than yesterday. Pulse rate still below optimum.‖
―Yeah, well, I‘ve got a lot on my mind.‖
―Right,‖ said the wizard, ―like dying before breakfast.‖ He pulled out a long scroll and began to read.
― Here‘s what the fates have in store for you today...‖
 Virtual Drama | 3

Wolf Wake
In the dark corners of Jorge‘s bedroom a narrow horizontal band of light began to glow and then
spread upward until it filled the air in front of one entire wall with a friendly, hazy pattern. A gigantic
digital clock materialized and emitted a low tone. No reaction from the rest of the room. A cartoon face
appeared and looked toward the darkness at the bottom of the wall. It shook its head and sighed as if to
say "What am I gonna do about this kid?‖
The face disappeared, and the wall transformed into a rectangular window which faced out onto a
three dimensional alien landscape–a metallic village out of an engineer‘s nightmare. A howl sounded in
the distance. Something beneath the window stirred. A large wolf-like creature appeared and bounded
forward, so that its entire face–at once handsome and terrifying–seemed to fill the window. It looked
down and began to growl. No reaction. It raised its eyebrows in exasperation, then raised its head and
began to howl–first a quiet, keening howl, and then a grating, multi-octave sound which grew louder and
harsher until it seemed to physically bounce off the walls of the room.
The head of a young boy emerged from the darkness. ―Crap,‖ said Jorge, ―How late am I?‖ ―Just the
usual,‖ said the wolf. ―Don‘t trip on the clothes on the floor.‖ Too late.
The wolf bared its teeth and sighed.

Dinosaurs, Cockroaches, and Scrambled Eggs

Steam from volcanic ash mingled with wisps of low lying fog just above the swamp. Bellowing
sounds came from the interior of the forest, sending small mammals scurrying across the rushing stream,
off of the display wall and onto the surface of the food preparation area.
Anya, a lanky seventeen year old wearing a fashion bodysuit alive with her favorite dram characters,
building explosions, rude hand gestures, and insects –– screamed for her brother.
―Jorge! I thought mom told you to never, ever let those things near the food!‖
Maria suppressed a smile and patted her daughter on the shoulder that wasn‘t crawling with virtual
cockroaches. ―It‘s his day to choose the scenery, honey.‖
Anya poured food mix into the hopper and punched some numbers. ―Well, he could think about other
people some of the time,‖ she pouted. She opened up the processor delivery door and pulled out a
steaming plate of hotcakes.
Maria sighed. Nils, now wearing shorts and a T-shirt that featured a slowly rising sun, glided
somewhat unsteadily into the room on one of his recent impulse purchases, gelwalker shoes.
―Daddy!‖ called Anya. ―You got them working again. They are sooo cool.‖
Nils poured a sack of food marked ―Nils. Monday AM‖ into the food hopper. ―I don‘t know, honey.
They don‘t adjust to forward movement. It‘s like I‘m walking in sand all the time.‖
―Oh. Cool. That‘d be great for the calves, wouldn‘t it?‖
Nils decided that avoidance was the best course and called to the forest. ―DinoMike, are you in
there?‖
―Stupid dinosaurs,‖ said Anya as she ran a forkful of pancake along the trail of worker ants climbing
up her sleeve.
A large raptor lunged out of the forest and roared at the family.
―DinoMike! Behave yourself.‖ said Maria. The raptor smiled shyly.
 Virtual Drama | 4

―Sorry. I gotta do that every once in a while. Appearances.‖

DinoMike stepped off of the viewing wall onto a side table. ―Weather today looks pretty good. Water
temperature is ideal for viewing stream pollution, Maria. Nils & Anya can take their bikes. Where‘s
Jorge?‖
The family shrugged.
DinoMike snorted a thin blue mist and continued. ―Nils. Dr. Wilson needs you to go into the facility
this morning.‖
―Did she say why?‖ Nils asked.
DinoMike‘s face morphed into a sixty-something executive with hair that changed color along with
her voice inflections. ―Nils. We need you to come over here this morning to go over the architectural
models with the Samkoia execs. Sorry to drag you away from home, but .. let me know when you get
here.‖
Jorge dashed into the room and walked through DinoMike‘s tail.
―Pleeeze!‖ said DinoMike. ―A little respect.‖
Jorge scooped food mix from three separate containers and threw them into the hopper. Anya made a
gagging sound.
DinoMike roared quietly. ―Ryan Augurs calling for Anya.‖
―Accept,‖ called Jorge quickly, and smirked at Anya.
Anya took one look at the giant plate full of pancakes in front of her, dropped her utensils on the
plate, and dove under the table. ―Motherrrr! I‘m gonna kill him. I‘m not here.‖ Anya crawled under the
table, headed for the display wall.
The handsome face of Ryan Augurs came onscreen. A giant green cockroach with cartoon-cute eyes
crawled across his headband and saluted the family.
―Hi Ryan. I think that ... Anya left for the character nursery already,‖ said Maria. A door in the
display wall opened and Maria could see Anya‘s back, alive with moving images of snakes and spiders,
crawl through.
Ryan was visibly disappointed. ―OK. Just tell her I‘ll see her right after my physics lesson with
Professor Heissenberg.‖
―OK. We‘ll tell her,‖ said Nils. There was an embarrassed pause. Ryan‘s cockroach reappeared. Ryan
gave a little wave goodbye. The cockroach followed suit.
Nils and Maria looked at each other and smiled.
―Good looking roach,‖ said Nils.
Maria punched him in the arm.

The Disappearing House

In the garden, Maria activated the housewrap, which immediately sensed the appearance and
movement of the surrounding forested landscape and made the house appear to blend into it. The entire
housing development now appeared to be a wooded hillside.
We‘re the last ones out again, thought Maria as she hurried down to the stream.
It took her a few minutes to get the anti-pollutant equipment and the portable dram rig stowed into the
 Virtual Drama | 5

canoe. As she paddled off, she waved to Nils and Anya as they passed on their Solardale bikes. Nils
called goodbye to the Wizard, who was chanting a spell of protection on the house.

Immersed in History
In the family dram room, Jorge touched the floor to make sure the cleaning unit had removed the last
of his father‘s (yucch!) sweat. DinoMike lumbered in.
―I think you‘re gonna like this history dram,‖ said DinoMike.
―Yeah, right‖ said Jorge as he started to put on his bubblesuit.‖
―Don‘t need the full suit, buddy,‖ said DinoMike. ―Not much running around in this dram. A body
cloud‘ll do.‖
Disappointed, Jorge stepped out of the suit and tapped the floor grid, which released a dense stream of
―reformed‖ air around him. ―Bye‖ he said as put on his sensglasses.
Inside the dram, Jorge walked through the immersion scene –– a crowded street in colonial
Philadelphia –– slightly adjusted the smell and sound controls, and set the gelwalker treadmill for
―irregular surfaces‖ so he could check out the cobblestones. As he reached the iron gate that signaled his
entrance into the actual storyworld, he tripped and almost fell into a garbage tip. A boy his own age
hurried up to him.
―Apprentice Smith, be careful. And, you‘re late. I‘m CharlesJohns, the Apprentice Master. Make
haste, now.‖
Jorge followed Charles to the courtyard of a rickety inn where several of his classmates were waiting.
―Yo, Vasquez!‖ he called to a boy with dark curly hair. The simchar translation utility turned this into
―Morrow, Vasquez,‖ but failed totally to communicate his gesture. Too bad, he thought, and wondered
what the adult version of the dram would have done.
After a brief orientation session with their guide, and a warning to stay away from the sewage ditches
that led to the river, they were given their apprenticeship assignments.
Charles walked up to Jorge. ―Master Franklin is waiting for you now,‖ he said.

Squirt the Stream Clean

Maria paddled silently down the stream to the point where the runoff from local development
normally caused problems, connected her sensglasses, activated the monitoring system, and released a
small bodycloud into which Gwen materialized.
Gwen looked at the stream. ―It‘s pretty here, isn‘t it? Lance gets terribly seasick, you know.‖
Maria pointed to a spot by the stream bank where a wisp of blue smoke floated above the water. She
tapped her sensglasses off for a moment to make sure that the water wasn‘t actually on fire –– just her
signal for the presence of non-organic material –– then aimed a stream of bacteriolites at the smoke. A
bright yellow lilypad formed on the water –– her sign that the damage had been repaired.
Maria continued to paddle. ―Does Arthur get seasick?‖ she asked Gwen. ―Let‘s not talk about him
right now, if you don‘t mind.‖ ―All right,‖ said Maria. ―Nils is so at home in the water, I think he‘s part
seal.‖ ―Do you think he is?‖ asked Gwen. ―Oh, there‘s a big one,‖ she said, pointing to a blue cloud
hanging under a wooden bridge. Maria squirted. ―Part seal?‖ Maria asked. ―Merlin says it‘s possible.‖
Maria smiled and paddled under the bridge through the huge yellow lilypad.
 Virtual Drama | 6

A Nursery in Time
They flew through vast corridors stacked with banks of rapidly developing dram personalities. Dr.
Nuove flew straight up to the nineteenth century, turned right at Europe, and slowed at the historical
section.
―We could just have just jumped to the proper coordinates, of course, Anya,‖ said Dr. Nuove, ―but I
think that a fly-through gives new interns a better sense of just how many characters we‘re growing here
in the Nursery.‖
Anya, who had almost crashed into ―Buenos Aires, 1830‖, just grunted.
Dr. Nuove landed gracefully on a high catwalk, and pulled Anya onto the path next to the label
―London, 1840‖.
―To start you off today, we‘re going to be working with some automated characters we‘re growing to
use in London at the beginning of the industrial revolution.‖
―You mean, like in history drams?‖ Anya asked.
―Unh hunh,‖ said Dr. Nuove. ―And they‘re also used in a number of entertainment projects like
DickensWorld.‖ She pointed to several small windows which had glowing blue edges. Anya peeked in
and was startled to see scenes flashing by.
―They‘re being developed quicktime,‖ said Dr. Nuove. ―What you see there is a bodysurf –– where
you‘re experiencing the character‘s actual senses. Makes it easier to figure out what they‘re focusing on.‖
―It‘s pretty smoky where they are,‖ said Anya.
―London, 1840. Not pleasant. You‘re going to want to keep your smell controls as close to zero as
possible when you go in.‖
―I‘m going in there!?‖
―Right. We‘re trying to grow these characters as accurately as possible, so we‘ve implanted a large
number of actual events and memories, but we want them to have individual personalities.‖ Dr. Nuove
maneuvered a string of light into one of the windows.
―But, you need to control them somehow, right?‖ asked Anya, a bit nervously.
―Right. And to do that we needed to place ... what?‖
Anya thought back to her lessons. ―You‘re ... we‘re going to need to embed trigger memories.‖
―Exactly,‖ said Dr. Nuove, and patted Anya on the arm. ―The triggers are already placed, and these
characters here ––‖, she said, pointing to the circled windows, ―––are ready to have their triggers tested.
First we‘re going to test the triggers on individuals and then this afternoon we‘ll put them into their
community and test the triggers ‗live‘.‖
―OK,‖ said Anya. ―How do we start?‖
―First,‖ said Dr. Nuove, ― we need to get into costume.‖ She waved a thin, fiber wand at Anya.

Let’s Do Lunch in My Nanoroom

Nils walked around the living dram model of the Samkoia corporate campus, being careful not to step
on the tiny office workers who were doing a bit of lunchtime picnicking on the grassy fringes of the
playing fields.
―You see,‖ he continued, pointing to a large covered picnic pavillion near the cluster of office
buildings. ―They want to get away from the office for lunch, and they don‘t want to be herded together.
 Virtual Drama | 7

And, if it‘s raining...‖

Nils called to someone in the dark periphery of the nanoroom. ―Mei Lin. Re-set for 11AM. Light rain.
Mild weather. Quicktime. Please‖ ―O.K.,‖ came a quiet voice.
The tiny workers disappeared. Light rain fell. Just a few workers straggled out to the pavillion. Nils
called, ―Can we see an interior view of the cafeteria, please?‖
An entire floor of the building cloned itself and floated in front of them. The cafeteria was full of
people, eating and talking at cartoon speed.
―So what do you suggest?‖ asked one the Samkoia company architects, with a bit of an edge in his
voice.
―Mei Lin, show us Lunch Time number six, please. Same time frame, with rain at noon.‖
The pavillion disappeared, and a number of sturdy tables, clustered in groups, popped up and
automatically adjusted themselves to different heights. Workers streamed out of the buildings quicktime
and made a beeline for the tables.
―The tables are stable enough to withstand high winds, and here comes the rain,‖ Nils said.
A light rain began to fall. Large, transparent umbrellas arched out of the middle of the tables and
locked together to form little covered islands. The workers continued eating.
―That‘s an awful lot of motors to maintain,‖ said a burly engineer in the corner of the room.
―You‘re right,‖ replied Nils. ―So the whole mechanism is contained in the umbrella pole, and, of
course, it‘s solar powered.‖
Nils tapped the room floor controls a couple of times with his foot and a full-scale model of the
umbrellas appeared in the room and rotated.
―Interesting,‖ said a balding executive.
The Samkoia architects were very, very quiet.

Jorge Reports the Revolution

As Ben Franklin unscrewed the printing press, Jorge pulled out the long sheet of newsprint and hung
it up to dry. Ben kept up a running commentary about printing, life, science, and swimming as they
worked. God, the guy was interested in everything!
―Now that you know a bit about the process,‖ Ben said, rapidly sorting typeface into wooden
cubbyholes. ―I need you to do a bit of reporting for me.‖
―But I never...,‖ began Jorge.
―Nothing to it, lad,‖ said Ben, putting on his greatcoat.
―There‘s a meeting at the Dock Street Tavern to discuss drafting the articles of independence. I want
you to make notes and write it up. Five hundred words. Have it ready to go to press by three this
afternoon.‖
By the time Jorge started to object, Franklin had him out of the door and halfway down the street.
A real assignment, thought Jorge. And beer!

The Little Boxes in the Square

As Anya turned the corner and hurried down the grimy London alleyway, she had to throw herself
 Virtual Drama | 8

against the wall to avoid a shower of sewage coming from the upper stories. The alley was thronged with
people –– mostly men sweltering in heavy woolen suits.
Glad I decided to not do smell, Anya thought. She pulled out a list of addresses, character names, and
triggers. Charles is supposed to be at number 165, she thought. She knocked at the door of a ramshackle
tenement with lopsided windows. A strikingly handsome young man answered.
Anya brushed back a strand of hair and hesitated. This isn‘t a romance dram, she told herself. I‘m
here to do a job.
She turned back to the young man. ―Are you Charles?‖ she asked. He nodded yes.
―They‘re gathering in the square to view the bodies,‖ Anya said carefully, taking time to enunciate
each syllable.
The young man paled, nodded, and shut the door in her face.
She returned to the rendezvous point, where Dr. Nuove, dressed in an expensive black dress and
bonnet, stood waiting. She pointed to the square, where a crowd had started to form.
―What are all those little boxes on the ground?‖ asked Anya.
―What do you think?‖ said Dr. Nuove.
―Oh, no!‖ said Anya.
―Factory fire. Child labor. All too common in this period.‖
―And what will happen to Charles? Uh, to the guy I said the trigger phrase to?‖
Dr. Nuove put her arm around Anya. ―Their little brothers and sisters are in the coffins, dear. They‘ll
be part of the general strike. And most of them will be killed by the armed strikebreakers, I suppose.‖
Anya felt her breath slow and her eyes fill with tears.
―It wasn‘t a good time to be poor, Anya. It‘s never a good time to be poor.‖

Jai Alai and Mannequins in the AllMall

Nils materialized just inside the elaborate, woven-light gate of the AllMall and looked around for
Maria. I‘m late, he thought, so she probably went right to the clothing store.
Nils couldn‘t resist trying the demo of the new multi-level underwater jai alai game in the
AdventureSportsVillage, and he got ―slightly lost‖ navigating through the alien artifacts store, so he was a
bit out of breath when he finally reachd the door of ThisMinuteFashions.
Maria had already chosen the fabric and style and was being scanned for fit when he arrived at the
fashion department.
―Hi, Nils.‖ She threw him a kiss that materialized and landed wetly on his cheek. ―I decided to get the
three-piece layered one. You know, the one Eliza wore yesterday in AllMyGreatGrandchildren.‖
―Unh hunh,‖ answered Nils, momentarily distracted by a passing line of living female mannequins
who were doing some sort of group line dance.
Maria grabbed his arm. ―Nils, stop that.‖
Nils smiled and turned toward her. ―Unh hunh. Oh, yeah. If we‘re going to be eating Italian Family
Style at WorldView, we better pick out a decent wine to take with us.‖
 Virtual Drama | 9

Family Style at WorldView

Anya oohed and aahed over Maria‘s new outfit as Nils handed a carafe of wine to the waiter.
―Table is ready,‖ Nils told them.
―Should we wait for Jorge?‖ asked Maria.
―Nah,‖ Nils said.
Nils looked around the large room, where each alcove displayed a different geographic dining scene,
and each group of diners ate a different cuisine.
―Looks like we‘re the only ones eating Italian Family Style tonight, so...‖
They walked over to their table, sat down, put on their sensglasses, and the Giotta family came to life
in the alcove, called to the Smith‘s like old friends (they were), and told them to sit down and eat. Waiters
brought antipasto on both sides of the alcove. Mama Giotta wasn‘t thrilled by the quality of the prosciuto,
and berated the waiter, who shrugged, cursed, and sauntered off.
Jorge ran up and sat down. ―What, you think we‘d start without you, Jorge,‖ teased Mr. Giotta, who
was working on a huge plate of pasta.. Jorge made a face at his sister and waved, somewhat bashfully, at
the youngest Giotta girl at the end of the table.
Nils and Maria gave each other a look. Nils raised his eyebrows. Maria hit him under the table.
―So, kids,‖ she asked Anya and Jorge, ―Anything interesting happen today?‖
―Nope,‖ said Jorge. ―Just the usual.‖
―Yup,‖ said Anya. ―Pretty ordinary day.‖
Nils and Anya sighed and dug into their meal.
 Virtual Drama | 11

VIRTUAL CHARACTERS
 Virtual Drama | 12

Introduction
The beings who inhabit stories are called characters. They aren't called "people" because sometimes they
aren't people–although they usually tend to speak and act an awful lot like people. Let's face it, we're not
very good yet at understanding our own species, much less other earth species or Ortholians from the
planet Zork.

How This Section Will Proceed

In this section we'll take a look at the development of the computer generated/ mediated characters who
will inhabit Virtual Drama. There's quite a lot to discuss here, so I begin by introducing various "types"
and functions of dram characters, followed by a consideration of ―humanosity‖ –– what it will take for a
character to be considered "human".
Then we start the heavy lifting -- examining development processes for three major kinds of virtual
characters: fixed-script characters (all action and dialogue prepared in advance), automated characters
(with their own personalities, communication systems, and personal histories –– but controllable), and
independent characters (virtual people). For each type, we'll examine ways of creating and controlling the
characters. Then I introduce ―The Eight Stages of Character Independence‖, and, toward the end of the
section, suggest the ―Wells/Wyndham Tests‖ –– Turing-Test-like challenges to see how well dram
developers are doing at making characters independent.
Please Don't Read All of this Section. Since I've tried to cover a lot of ground here, you may want to
skim through the first chapter – which effectively sets out goals for character development, and then surf
the rest of the section for bits that interest you.

The Nature of Virtual Characters

High Expectations. Virtual Drama will rely heavily on computer-generated characters because there are
a limited number of situations in which non-virtual people are available for, or cost effective for, or
particularly good at, the sort of unlimited 24/7 role-play that will be required by many drams. Since the
public perception of Virtual Drama characters has largely been shaped by the TV series Star Trek and by
other film representations of immersive virtual environments, travelers (the participants) will be also
expecting quite sophisticated types of interaction.
Special Demands. In most forms of storytelling, the characters "live" for brief periods of story time ––
from 10 seconds in a TV commercial to 800 pages as the dominating character of an epic novel. They
speak a limited number of carefully pre-scripted words, and move when, where, and how the
 Virtual Drama | 13

author/director wishes. Ordinarily, they are completely unaware of the audience.

In the world of a dram, which could go on for 24 hrs a day, for years –– with extensive interaction
between characters and travelers –– there are some very special demands made on characters:
- Character personalities must be clearly defined, since a complex virtual world could have
thousands of characters; in advanced drams each character must have extensive repertoires of
likes/dislikes, emotions, words, beliefs, and so on.
- In long-term drams characters must be able to interact with each other (and with travelers) for
hours/days/weeks at a time–all "in character".
- In virtual worlds where characters are autonomous or "independent", they will need to continue
this interaction even when "reals" aren't present.
- Their communication "systems" (verbal and nonverbal) must be:
-flexible enough to allow them to interact with (understand and communicate to) travelers from
different cultures–with widely divergent vocabularies and knowledge bases; and
-believably character-specific (A character who is a wine grower from southern France is not
likely to be an expert on nuclear physics.)
- They must be able to move through virtual environments freely–handling objects they haven't
encountered before, not walking through walls (unless they're supposed to), and sensing what is
around them.
- Wherever possible, they should exist independent of a particular scenario or setting–so they can
move from space to space (or from dram to dram).

Categorizing Virtual Characters

Early dram characters might have cartoon bodies and personalities. Later characters should be slightly
more "realistic", and ultimately we should see the development of functionally autonomous virtual
people–with their own personalities, vocabularies and personal histories–who live out their lives
independent of the "reals" outside their computer generated worlds.
In terms of function, some virtual characters may stand-in for the traveler (―doubles‖); others may act as
guards (―angels‖), guides (―guides‖), and private dram evaluator/ shoppers (―dram assistants‖). And, of
course, most characters will play roles in the dram story experiences chosen by the traveler.

Virtual Character Types By Appearance

The ultimate goal of dram development is to produce characters who look and sound like "real people". In
the meantime, the computer storage and display demands involved in creating virtual characters who can
move, communicate, and make up stories in realtime will force some tradeoffs. Here are some general
character "looks" – all of which assume immersive interaction between characters and travelers :
Bot-toons. These characters are a step up from text-only robot characters who occupy many MUD and
MOO environments. They are two dimensional, cartoon-like characters with awkward movement and
crude gesture and facial expression–but have non-verbals (including mouth movement) synched with their
speech–which may be displayed as text or translated into computer voices. The limited display options
allow computational resources to be devoted to tasks such as speech recognition, dialogue generation, and
 Virtual Drama | 14

the shaping of story flows.

Avs are 3D cartoons whose bodies can be viewed from different physical perspectives. They have the
limited depth of cartoons, but can move relative to other characters, travelers, or physical spaces without
"walking through them".
Droids appear to be much more "realistic" in surface texture, depth and movement, and can change in
appearance depending on your distance from them. Their mouth/speech synch is pretty good, with speech
localized so that a traveler can immediately identify which of several droids has spoken.
VPs (virtual people) have completely realistic appearance–to the point where they exhibit a full range of
biophysical functions (breathing, sweating etc.). Some VPs will be so realistic that medical procedures–
including surgery –– can be performed on them. VPs can touch and be touched, and can perform a full
range of complex movement skills–including sports, etc.

Virtual Character Types By Function

All storytelling forms have characters who perform specific functions within that form. For example, in
the novel the narrator is the disembodied voice of the author character– usually speaking in the first or
third person. In film, a few characters appear in almost every scene; other characters only pop up once in
a while; and a number of characters just appear in the background–as though they were part of the
scenery.
Because Virtual Drama is an immersive, interactive story form, keeping travelers informed, involved, and
safe becomes particularly important, and calls for some specialized characters.

Specialized Dram Characters

Doubles. In drams where travelers are interacting with virtual characters (or each other), they need to be
physically represented in some way within the virtual space. "Doubles" are character stand-ins for
travelers. Knowing human nature, we can expect that travelers will be particularly interested in the
appearance and functioning of their doubles–a fact that dram developers ignore at their own financial
peril.
Angels. Quite a few drams are likely to require travelers to move and to participate in the story flow in
various ways. This opens up wonderful opportunities for physical and psychological injury–accompanied
by lawsuits. Savvy dram developers will require travelers to submit certain kinds of medical and
psychological information (in a destroy-when-done form), and will build into their hardware and software
monitoring mechanisms that will tell central control systems when travelers are getting themselves into
trouble.
Where "real" trouble is involved, specialized characters –– "angels" or ―guardian angels‖ –– can be used
to convey warning messages, to modify or end the dram, and, if necessary, to help travelers move out of
danger, or to contact real-world emergency facilities. Angels should, if at all possible, have characteristics
chosen/designed by travelers themselves and should be functionally independent of both the story
program itself and of override control by the traveler–so that there is no way "around" important safety
constraints. Angels are the ultimate authority, and, in this case, help prevent travelers from making an
unscheduled visit to the afterlife.
Story Guides. Once physically immersed in a dram story world, travelers will need a helping hand to
figure out where they are, who they are, where they've been, and where they're going. Like any
adventurer, a traveler needs a guide. The story guide is a character who fits into the time/place of the
story, but mainly exists to translate the ins-and-outs of the story world to the traveler, to translate culture,
customs, and even language, and to make sure the traveler is at the right place at the right time for
 Virtual Drama | 15

important story events. The story guide is provided by the story world developer, can communicate with
the dram assistant (see below), and must respond to the angel character.
Dram Assistants. If you are familiar with the electronic calendar/ diary/ communication devices known
as ―personal digital assistants‖, then it shouldn't be a great jump to think of a virtual character who "lives"
in your home or in a patch on your shirt. You will be able to ask him/her to get information for you, to
pay bills, get tickets–anything you can do through a computer network.
I see a form of personal assistant (or a module within the personal assistant) being developed for dram-
travelers to be able to negotiate the enormous number of dram options that are likely to be available. For
example, if you are "feeling" like experiencing an "up" dram you may have thousands of options of
characters, events, and settings–which you may be allowed to put together anyway you want. Not only
might you "freeze" from the number of choices that have to be navigated, but you will also probably be
very wary of selecting a dram without sampling a bit of it in a "demo" version. (Immersion experiences
can be extremely involving at "gut level" and a disturbing dram could be very unpleasant indeed.)
Besides saving time, the dram assistant will be able to keep the decision process and at least part of the
purchase process private. The marketing departments of dram providers would love to see all of the
psychological information used in determining your purchase. The dram assistant should act as a buffer
between you and "them". I personally believe that these assistants should be made by separate companies
and should be heavily regulated – there‘s just too much opportunity for invasion of privacy.

Story Characters

The small but important cadre of specialized dram characters I've just discussed will represent only a tiny
percentage of all dram characters, who will mostly play dramatic roles in stories. I emphasize "dramatic"
roles here because, although certain types of independent characters may live what we would call
"normal" lives -- virtual people living in a community of peers, most virtual story characters are likely to
be designed to conform to the tradition of character storytelling, in which key events from a character's
life are highlighted or selected, or, as in the case of TV soap operas and other melodramas, characters are
chosen whose personalities, life history and ethical/moral systems tend to constantly place them in
heightened, stressful, or conflict-bearing life situations.
Whether story characters are action-adventure heroes or Galapagos tortoises, their importance to the story
at any given time acts as a built-in classification system that can be useful to dram developers.
Although complex, sophisticated drams may allow any story character to become a major character by the
simple action of having a traveler shift focus to him/her, early drams are likely to employ a character
classification hierarchy such as: major, secondary, incidental, background.
Major story characters are expected to carry most of the flow of the story–as they do in the novel
or in film. In long-term drams there may be quite a few major characters, who are likely to be the
most sophisticated in appearance, communication skill, and degree of independence from central
control programs.
Secondary story characters are important to the story, but aren't available to the traveler as often
as major characters. In some drams the reverse may be true, with secondary characters being the
only characters travelers are permitted to talk with–especially in mysteries and other genres
where developers don't want travelers to have too much access to major characters, or in
situations where multiple travelers are in the same, time-limited, dram, and where allowing all
travelers access to major characters would make it impossible to "finish" the story within the
allotted time.
Incidental story characters pop in and out now and then, but rarely have much influence on the
story–except in the case of what I call "stealth" characters, whose job in a dram is to somehow
 Virtual Drama | 16

trick travelers into going in a particular direction or to take a particular course of action. "You
can't go down that tunnel, mate! It's blocked by fire!" ―Oh, dear, the restaurants are all booked for
the holiday. Why don‘t we go for a picnic on the grounds of that old Gothic mansion near the
graveyard?‖
Background story characters are almost literally part of the scenery. They provide an ongoing
reference to time, place, culture, class and story circumstances. For example, groups of ragged,
self-flagellating monks dragging carts full of corpses through the muddy streets of a medieval
town immediately signify "plague-town".
In dram communities made up of independent characters (virtual people), a story character may be a
major, secondary, incidental, or background character at any given time depending on the interest of the
traveler.

The Humanosity of Virtual Characters

I remember a character in a film talking about "that great mass of humanosity out there", and the word
―humanosity‖ stuck with me because the image that formed in my mind was that of a street full of semi-
transparent people going about their lives with actions, emotions, and thoughts totally exposed.
Travelers are going to expect dram characters to be human–even when they aren't supposed to be–just as
a cartoon dog is ordinarily depicted as a person who just happens to look like a dog.
The level of humanosity required by travelers will be especially high because of expectations set by the
Star Trek "holodeck" immersive dramatic environment: you walk into a large room and you are in a
world whose people and structures appear to be completely real.
Until we develop sculptable air/force fields or just-in-time nano-architecture or direct RAS/cortical
implants, I'm afraid we'll be stuck with crude approximations of that ideal immersive environment.
Once the novelty of interactive story characters and environments wears off ("Gosh, the bunny answered
my question!"), travelers will start taking a more critical look at the humanosity factor: "Did that
character understand what I just said?" "Is this character wearing the proper costume?" "That character
remembers well enough, but he doesn't seem to learn anything!"
To give you some idea what creators of thoroughly human characters are up against, I've pulled together
my own brief overview of human characteristics, organized into these five categories:
1) physicalization, 2) communication; 3) individuation; 4) socialization; 5) occupation/avocation.
Please skim through these descriptions, add your own, and then we'll take a crack at development issues
surrounding three "levels" of dram characters: fixed-script characters, automated characters, and
independent characters.
 Virtual Drama | 17

1) Physicalization

General Features

Appearance. The most obvious aspect of humanosity is visual appearance. We spend countless hours
commenting on the appearance of others and preparing our own appearance to be "acceptable" in terms of
group or cultural norms. We expect "real people" to have a certain physical depth, a variable number of
visible surfaces and textures, and skin and other visible features that vary according to internal states, the
weather, or "bad hair days". Any other sort of appearance is "suspicious"–and evokes built-in negative or
dismissive reactions. We may enjoy watching a cartoon on screen, but it takes a special effort of will to
actively relate to one.
Dimensionality. Our ability to visually track moving objects at great distances is an important part of the
survival of our species. We can also differentiate objects that are close to us from those that are farther
away–a factor that has significant implications for all aspects of appearance display. And, since the
recognition of faces is crucial to our early childhood development (for bonding and safety), we‘ve
evolved a quite remarkable ability to evaluate the arrangement of human facial features at a distance. This
means that the texture, shape, and apparent depth of character surfaces need to be carefully attended to.
Since current display approaches require substantial amounts of memory to render dimensionality
accurately, dram depictions of characters may well require taking different approaches to visual
information storage and display.
Color. If you closely examine a digitized high resolution photograph of a face, you'll see that there are a
lot more colors represented than you would expect. Part of this has to do with the presentation of shadow
effects, of course, but when you figure that skin tone isn't uniform throughout the body, and that
coloration changes during different emotional and biophysical states –– not to mention tanning effects and
changes based on blood flow during different times of the day –– it makes a lot of sense. Particularly
tricky from a character representation point of view are apparent color changes based on movement and
distance from the viewer. Let's also not forget that if the viewer is playing a character, that character also
has visual perception characteristics, and might even have one of a number of types of colorblindness.
Naturalness. This is a catchall category I use to represent all other aspects of appearance–such as the way
muscles move under skin and clothing.
Appearance Memory. Even a character who isn't truly "individuated" will need to be able to recognize
her/his own appearance in a mirror–or when asked to describe themselves. This appearance memory,
following human norms, should be influenced by character personality, self-image, etc.

Movement

We expect the facial muscles, limbs and various body parts of humans to move in particular ways, but we
also assume that this movement will be relatively individualized. I say "relatively" because we are
designed to evaluate facial expressions in a lot more detail than gesture or full body movement.
Facial Expression. Most of us have seen those animated cartoons where the mouths and eyebrows of
characters move at pre-set times when they speak. This works better than no mouth movement at all, of
course, and is accepted as a convention of that storytelling form–where we listen for content and look for
action and movement. However, true humanosity requires an exact match between speech and multiple
facial muscle movements and detailed representation of those complex patterns of facial reactions which
represent a character's response to what is going on in the world around them.
If you have some doubt about the importance of this, think about our widespread distrust of people whose
 Virtual Drama | 18

professions require them to either mask or "blank out" facial expressions: lawyers, diplomats, politicians,
public relations reps, corporate executives, and sales people.
Facial expressions have meaning in familial, social, and cultural context and are individual enough so that
people who have spent a great deal of time with each other can often "read" each other's emotional/
tensional/ awakeness states based on perception of submusculature alone.
Gesture. We use gesture to convey yes/no/I don't know responses, to indicate spatial relationships
(pointing, showing how large the fish was before it got away, counting, etc.), and to convey broad sorts of
internal response such as impatience, tension, etc. Many cultures have gestures with meanings specific to
the culture, for example "screw you" hand/arm movements, and a number of cultures use specific gestures
to create pauses in the flow of communication. These cultural differences mean that it is quite important
to use "cultural gesture" filters with dram characters who are going to be used by multiple cultures.
Object Handling. Our opposable thumbs and eight, multi-jointed fingers have, along with curiosity and
wanderlust, given our species a significant advantage in dealing with the world. As a result, those things
which we have created for our own use are designed to be grasped and handled. Since hands and fingers
differ in size, shape, flexibility, and strength, there are substantial variations in the way that people go
about handling things. We use phrases like ―delicate touch‖ or ―ham-fisted‖ or ―butterfingers‖ to convey
these differences.
Large Body Movement. We walk, run, crawl, swim, or climb our way from place to place. Anything that
is possible to do with our multi-jointed appendages, someone is doing – and may even be making a living
at it. Our large muscle movement is influenced by many factors, including our body mass, flexibility,
muscle strength, available oxygen and food supply, and, of course, the terrain through which we are
moving. Large body movement can also be used to convey information, such as emotional and physical
states. We can often tell a great deal about two people and their relationship by the way they sit together
on a sofa.
Muscle Memory. If you‘ve ever watched a professional dance company rehearse, you‘ve probably been
impressed by the speed with which they memorize and execute extremely complex movement sequences.
This ability, part innate and part trained, is an extreme example of ―muscle memory‖, which is our ability
to remember what we have to do to lift our arms in a particular way. This form of memory is our first
great achievement as children, and remains very important to us at least through the early adult years.
Our most obvious use of muscle memory has to do with our mastery of common tasks, such as eating
with a knife and fork, or the typing I‘m doing now.
Sensory Processes. The reason we have senses is to help us stay alive. Mother Evolution has devoted a
lot of ingenuity to this task, and has given our species a quite wonderful array of sensory doodads,
including sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, skin sense, muscular sense, and balance, plus a meta-sense that
helps us co-ordinate the rest.
To make things even more difficult for those trying to simulate individual humans, we have wide
variations in sensory abilities.
Most story forms use these sensory differences in one way or another – often as a plot device, as in the
characters who simply can‘t see an important clue in a mystery. Ongoing drams, though, will have to
more closely approximate real human sensory variations to prevent travelers from getting that
―cartoon/zombie‖ feeling transmitted through their senses as they interact with characters.
Body Boundaries. An interesting aspect of sensory coordination is our ability to tell the difference
between what is inside of us and what is outside, and to be able to accurately estimate how well our
senses are working today.
Sensory Memory. When we say, ―I saw Benny Blimpo and his wife and four of their five kids in that old
Buick of theirs this morning down at the bagel bakery‖, we are relaying a group of sensory memories of
 Virtual Drama | 19

some sophistication, since we need to remember the physical identifications of seven people and an
automobile. Our conversations are peppered with such sensory details, and their retelling conveys a great
deal about the relative accuracy of our senses and the efficiency of our memory for particular senses.

Cyclical Biological Processes

In ―polite‖ societies, certain aspects of our daily lives are seldom talked about directly, or become topics
of conversation only when something out of the ordinary occurs.
Even in ―tell all‖ U.S. society, sweat, digestion, menstruation, and the process of childbirth are spoken of
in the media in hushed tones (if at all), while discussions about diet, sex, and disease fill our tabloid
newspapers.
These cyclical biological processes –– along with relationships and jobs –– form the basis of a great deal
of our private conversations, and can‘t be overlooked when we are talking about building human-like
characters.
Fortunately, immersive, interactive simulations of these processes are likely to be developed for medical
simulations.
Let me list some of these cyclical processes and leave the rest to your imagination: breathing, blood flow,
digestion, energy cycle, nutrition, energy cycle, menstrual cycle, sleep-wake cycle, bone and cell growth
and decay, dirt and particle accumulation and evacuation, hair, nail, and skin growth, sexual maturation,
aging, wellness and disease.
On a daily basis we also perform a number of tasks which directly relate to these cyclical processes:
washing, insect and pest removal, eating, hair grooming and cutting, brushing teeth, and body adornment.

2) Communication

We hum, click, nod, wiggle, speak, yell, and point to/at each other. Although there are only a certain
number of things that people actually do, we have developed language and non-verbal structures that
greatly extend both the numbers of things we have to communicate, as well as the variety of verbal and
nonverbal constructs we use to express them.
We have codified and databased virtually all of the world‘s languages and body language systems, and
are about to make computer-based simultaneous translation of the most popular languages a reality.
But, once again, individual variations are the tricky bits. Characters living in an extremely limited
communication environment will be somewhat easier to model – one reason why fantasy and sci-fi stories
are likely to appeal to early dram developers.
Characters living in more complex environments are much more difficult to ―get right‖ – except by
directly sampling people – because there can be so many subtle influences on vocabulary, accent, and
body dialect.
Speech requires a vocabulary of words plus ways of saying them (tone, inflection) that are specific to a
group of people. Individuals within the group don‘t always recognize that they are participating in a
separate language dialect, but do pick up the differences between their own dialect and vocabulary and
those of other groups.
We are able to learn new words, dialects, and languages and have to do so when we take up occupations
or avocations which use specialized languages.
Within our own speech group we can often identify individual speakers by the characteristics of their
voices alone (as on the telephone), and, in fact electronic voiceprints are unique enough to allow them to
 Virtual Drama | 20

be used for identification.

One of the more interesting aspects of speech is that we can lie, fantasize, and create situations that don‘t
exist in ―reality‖. Our ability to indicate past and future events is a form of lying or filtering which allows
us to plan and to revise plans.
We can also extend speech via telephone, radio, etc., although from the skill point of view these
capabilities aren‘t much different than talking to someone in another room – or in the next cave.
Reading/Writing allow us to communicate across continents and generations. Reading allows us to
acquire knowledge and store it without being in the presence of the teacher/storyteller. Writing extends
our thoughts and feelings to the rest of the world and extends the tribal meeting far beyond the campfire.
Reading and writing are somewhat difficult to master, however, since the symbols normally used to
represent language elements aren‘t always straightforward, and the whole process of memorizing
splotches of scribbles and associating them with spoken words is a bit daunting. This partly accounts for
wide differences in reading skill and comprehension, and writing style (both penmanship and word
choice).
Both reading and writing also assume the gradual accumulation and mastery of large chunks of language,
and exposure to the storytelling forms upon which reading and writing are based.
Nonverbals were discussed under physicalization (above). We communicate with virtually every part of
our bodies. These body languages may be formal, as in gestures used by certain groups/cultures, with
meaning understood by the entire group. There is also a much more informal communication process – as
in a couple sitting in front of a fire with just their feet rubbing against each other. The most significant
nonverbals are those than convey strong emotional states or warnings. ―Uh Oh. Consuela has that eye
twitch again. Better duck if she reaches for the knives.‖
Recognition. An important aspect of our communication process has to do with the fact that we were
originally a nomadic species and carry levels of trust as part of our defense against the unknown and often
hostile outside world.
These layers of distrust each have their own communication content and patterns, with more and more
personal information divulged as the level of distrust decreases.
For example, if we were to abstract a person‘s communication patterns from their physical appearance,
and if we were to examine the patterns of the person at a corporate meeting and the same person playing
with their children, we might have difficulty recognizing the two sets of patterns as belonging to the same
person.

3) Individuation

As infants we spend a great deal of time discovering what is us and what isn‘t us. At first there is very
little distinction between inside and outside, but we are gradually forced to make distinctions, and create
sensory, cognitive, and emotional boundaries that allow us to engage the world without getting hurt –
most of the time.
An extremely important part of our world is our ―inner life‖ – the processes that go on in our head and
body that are only observable if we broadcast them through one or more of our communication channels.
We have an internal monologue (us talking to us), a highly filtered ongoing replay of our life events in
sensory form, cognitive processes (such as reasoning, memory, learning, problem solving, and decision
making) and imagination – which allows us to manipulate images of what was into depictions of what
might be.
Of course we only identify and name these inner processes through contact with the outside world using
 Virtual Drama | 21

language, and it is interesting that different cultures map this inner landscape in slightly different ways.
As we build the boundaries which allow us to extend our awareness into the outside world (and some
people do have difficulty with this process), we separate ourselves from those around us by noticing that
we have a specific set of likes, dislikes, beliefs, emotion-triggers and sensitivities – which we can lump
together under the term ―personality‖. We spend most of our childhood and early adult years building
personality. We spend the rest of our lives comparing our own personalities (usually favorably) to
everyone else‘s.
The whole notion of the self and consciousness comes out of this differentiation between self and outside
and between self and others. We cannot truly know another person in the way that we know ourselves
because we aren‘t supposed to.
Part of the inner monologue which acts as our chief guide and principal entertainment has to do with
finding out who someone else is and what they want. Are they dangerous? Do their beliefs drastically
conflict with ours? Do they love (yucch!) macaroons? How should I respond to them in a such a way that
they will understand that I don‘t have the slightest idea what they are talking about – without offending
them?
Individual Memory. Crucial to our sense of self is the collection of (usually) filtered images, sounds and
emotional reactions that we think of as representing the history of our life. We use this inner storehouse of
information to make judgements, decisions and reactions – often at a subconscious level.
In fact, the imperfection of our individual memories is an important part of our recognition of what/who is
believably human. ―When I was two I remember thinking...‖ ―Yeah. Right.‖
This biased, skewed, inaccurate form personal history is represented faithfully by the masters of virtually
every story form.

4) Socialization

No sooner have we figured out the difference between our left hand and the dog‘s tail than we are
expected to learn the do‘s and don‘ts of family, neighbors, friends, and schoolmates. Most of this learning
consists of internalizing the nature and status of relationships and the rules of interaction within those
relationships:
―Don‘t play with brother Tommy‘s ball. He gets angry.‖
―Uncle Wahoo smells like a perfume factory, but I‘m not to say anything about it or hold my nose
or anything.‖
―We don‘t talk to the Jackson‘s down the street. They don‘t belong to our church or anything.‖
―I‘m not supposed to say the word ‗damn‘ when Mrs. Yakimoto is visiting –– unless she‘s been
taking sips from that little flask of hers.‖
Rule-Based Social Systems. Of course most social relationships are rule-based systems. For very close
relationships such as family, lovers and friends, the rules develop over a period of time. More distant
relationships tend to be governed by sets of rules enforced and reinforced by social and cultural groups
and by formal systems of laws.
Each of these social groupings tends to have its own private vocabulary and non-verbal structures. For
example, dinners with the volleyball team are very different than dinner with Aunt Mira and Uncle Yugo.
The development of social group languages appears to be a biological phenomenon, for most of us seem
to be quite adept at juggling a number of different small group languages and sub-dialects. To be able to
navigate this maze of relationships, we must have learned and practiced the rules and must be able to
identify the verbal and non-verbal signals which call for changes in our behavior.
 Virtual Drama | 22

For example, if a particular group has been talking about a very personal aspect of someone‘s life, the
presence of a non-group member might be signaled by a cough and an eye gesture, indicating ―Here
comes someone who shouldn‘t share this conversation. Change the subject.‖ Or, perhaps a certain subject
is ―simply not discussed‖ within a particular group. Broaching the subject might evoke a subtle, collective
holding of breath or frozen expressions on the faces of group members.
When people are moving from group to group or from culture to culture, it takes a while for them to learn
a new set of rules, and the more subtle the rules/trigger mechanisms, the more difficult those new rules
may be to learn.
Some people have difficulty learning multiple social-group languages – either because they have never
learned this skill in the first place, or because they have sensory/cognitive deficits which make it unlikely
that they will sense behavior triggers, or because they simply perceive no viable reward for learning new
rules.
For any social group, we can plot the relationships among group members and infer the group rules by
observing them over a period of time. This is an important tool of family therapy and social anthropology,
and allows us a way in to the difficult task of modeling relationships for groups of characters.

5) Vocation /Avocation

We spend most of our lives performing complex, specialized tasks known as occupations or jobs. In
isolated cultures most members of the society will learn all of the tasks and skills needed for survival.
Even in these societies, though, there is usually some mechanism for identifying specific individual
abilities, or else a ―don‘t-do-this‖ system contains de facto role separations such as ―women do this and
men do that‖.
Most occupations have their own operational languages and sets of skills which have to be mastered.
Very often these skills will require both physical and cognitive activities and can, to the novice, seem
quite complex.
For example, if you‘ve ever made bread ―from scratch‖ you immediately come to respect the professional
baker. Ever tried to build a hardwood cabinet? Tailor a jacket?
Our information age tends to prize skills which are math/engineering based., but these occupations also
have a physical component – even if it‘s learning how to type rapidly or how often to stretch during a
sixteen hour day stuck in a desk chair.
One of the more positive features of our information-rich societies is that it is possible to learn the
―tricks‖ of many occupations. This generates new respect for these occupations as legions of people come
to realize that mastery of apparently simple occupations actually requires quite a bit of skill and expertise.
We not only learn occupations and skills, we also learn to teach them. The ability to pass on information
by example, by gradually increasing the difficulty of tasks, and by setting out rules for different stages of
training, is required of most people in all cultures. I‘ve heard quite sophisticated scientists say that
teaching their children how to talk was the most demanding (and rewarding) assignment they‘ve every
tackled.
 Virtual Drama | 23

Fixed-Script Characters

Introduction

It doesn't take hi-tech know-how to realize that characters who can function largely independent of a
particular scenario, of each other, and of central programming controls, are preferable when it comes to
producing dram experiences that are long or which involve extensive interaction between travelers and
characters.
While the technology to create truly independent characters is being developed, however, a number of
dram experiences are likely to appear in which character dialogue/situations are entirely pre-scripted ––
either by adapting existing characters, through story/myth mining, by using script teams, or by
extensively sampling actual lives.

Story Experiences Using Fixed-Script Characters

Before we get to development processes, though, let's take a look at some of the kinds of experiences
where drams can be populated by fixed-script characters: ghosting (plus hitching/surfing/diving),
branching plots, "real event" stories, and limited interaction between characters and travelers.
Ghosting (and hitching/surfing/diving) in drams. ―Nikko couldn't see what the Red Queen had done
with the March hare, so she called up the movement controls and teleported to a position just above them.
She wished that she had chosen Alice's point of view, but her friend Lars had gotten there ahead of her.‖
An important early approach in creating immersive dramatic experiences will be to put audience members
inside the story–allowing them to choose among physical points of view (POV) from which to observe
characters and events –– without actually interacting with characters.
"Ghosting" experiences of this sort can easily be tailored to fit the TV or feature film time slots to which
viewers have become accustomed. The camera techniques/technologies necessary to do this are already
with us. Scenes can be shot from several points of view (including overhead) so that the audience member
gets to choose point of view.
A specialized version of this sort of ghosting would allow for what I call "surfing"–placing the traveler
inside the body (in this case just the eyes and ears) of a character, or "hitching"–experiencing the physical
view and present thoughts of the character, or "diving"–getting a fairly full experience of a character's
ongoing sensory experiences, verbal thought, and ongoing imagery and memory activities.
Ghosting, hitching, surfing, and diving can all be accomplished using fixed script characters, since in
these modes the traveler is a passive observer in the experience and everything can be prepared in
advance – as in computer games.
Since immersive interaction is a new way of experiencing stories (unless you live with a large extended
family who talk a lot), a large number of story-properties can be "revisited", using the new dram
technology. How about the film 'Alien' from the alien's point of view? For new story projects, single
perspective and multiple perspective versions of stories can be shot at the same time.
Branching Stories. Story experiences where the audience get to determine what happens next have been
 Virtual Drama | 24

with us for a while now, with the most extensive use being in single-person-shooter games in various
media.
At particular points in the storyline, characters have a decision to make, and the audience decide (or vote
on) which direction the characters (and thus, the plot) should take.
Since the more decision points there are, the larger the number of story segments have to be written, the
number of audience decision points used for full drameo or animation versions of branching stories has
tended to be small.
Stories with “Real Event” Settings. ―The actor Martin Blaufeld stepped onto the deck of the
condominium and saw the approaching tidal wave. ‗Oh my God!‘ he said, in a voice which owed less to
acting talent than to the fact that he was viewing –– via remote sensing –– an actual tidal wave about to
wash over an inhabited South Pacific island.‖
The current popularity of "Reality TV" programs has a great deal to do with the "being there" aspect of
the experience, while producers are interested in its low cost.
Stories which have dramatic action inserted electronically into live/ very recent events (say, an earthquake
or a large festival) could also add a sense of immediacy to relatively mundane dramatic faire. Adding both
fictional and immersive aspects –– by allowing viewers to move around virtual characters who appear to
be in the middle of ongoing "real" events –– would give audiences some sense of control. This approach
also acknowledges the fact that sometimes viewers find more drama in collapsing buildings, in the plight
of a beached whale, or in the approach of a tsunami than they do in carefully crafted plots.
The legal and ethical issues involved with the use of live events are complex, contentious, and are, I
suspect, the main reason more of this sort of programming hasn't been tried more often.
But, in terms of our present discussion, real event character activities can certainly be pre-scripted.
"We've got wildfires in central Florida. Let's release Firespotter #26 with whatisname in the lead. We get
the backgrounds from our robots."
Limited Interaction with Characters. The desire to ask characters questions --especially in mysteries
and in dramas featuring involved relationships–is one of those facts of human nature which accounts for
the enormous amount of correspondence sent to fictional characters by otherwise sensible
readers/viewers. ―Dear Sherlock Holmes...‖ The ability to actually introduce "natural" interaction
between characters and travelers requires extensive use of voice recognition and artificial intelligence
technologies. However, typing-based question and answer or simple key-word voice recognition sessions
can certainly be woven into interactive experiences–especially those that are mystery/game based.
The power of this sort of question-and-answer approach is that audiences can develop a "relationship"
with a fictional character during the story (or before or after a story takes place) by being able to ask the
character questions through electronic means such as email, chat, digital phone, etc.
Character/traveler interactions of this limited kind could help mightily in the development of criteria for
assembling the extensive character databases and "life rules" required for automated characters (see next
chapter). It also opens audiences to the notion of communicating directly with virtual characters in ways
that don't interfere with the ongoing flow of the story, as compared with ―fooling around with a virtual
talking head‖.

Developing Fixed Script Characters

Enabling travelers to float around inside stories, choose plot directions, wander around dramatically
enhanced live events, or interact with characters, requires a substantial increase in the amount of character
 Virtual Drama | 25

dialogue that has to be pre-written. As experiences get longer or as travelers are given more freedom, the
amount of required dialogue begins to expand exponentially.
For example, I once helped develop a detailed outline for a two-week, 24-hour-a-day live space station
"performance experience". We figured that even with a fair amount of improvisation by actors who had
backgrounds in technical fields, any "shell" script could run to 10,000 pages in length!!
This large increase in the quantity of dialogue pushes the scriptwriting process into territory traditionally
occupied by the novel ––or, for really long pre-scripted experiences, the novel series–and therein lies a
problem.
Experienced scriptwriters (whether they write primarily action-based or character-based material) have
conditioned themselves to "feel" their way toward the script lengths used in TV, film, and theater. This
bread-and-butter tendency to "clock" themselves limits the amount of "good" character dialogue many
writers will be able to produce by themselves and calls for somewhat different script-development
methods.
The ones I'll discuss here are: adapting existing characters, story mining, script teams, and live sampling.
Adapting Existing Characters. Any character which has been extensively developed and is fairly well-
known by the public is an excellent candidate for fixed script drams. At first you might think of characters
such as Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and any number of other principal figures in popular mystery
series who should adapt very nicely to (limited length) fixed script drams. But just think about Soap
Opera characters who have continued day after day (only 15 minutes at a time, of course) year after year.
"Soaps" offer entire casts of highly involving characters who have practically become part of long time
viewers‘ families. A quick calculation will tell you that some of the older soaps could each provide
several thousand hours of fixed script character material!
Story Mining. A ―bulk‖ approach to developing dialogue for fixed-script characters would be to take all
of the dialogue from a particular ―kind‖ of existing character from a number of different stories and to
mine them for use. For example, all of those off-copyright hard-boiled detectives from early 20th century
pulp fiction have speech characteristics that are pretty much alike.
Script Teams. Many TV and film projects are mounted so quickly (or have so much money riding on
their success) that script teams are used. One approach to team writing allows one or two writers to "get
inside the head" of a single character. When teams representing different characters get together, an
enormous number of "realistic" scenes and script events can be generated "on the fly".
Transcripts of these sessions can be used to prepare "first-cut" scripts, or dialogue and situations can be
filtered through actors whose physical appearance and voices are to be used (or sampled) for final
versions. These actors can also improvise situations given to them by the writers, and they can often
quickly assess whether dialogue "feels" right–if they have internalized the character sufficiently or are
"type-cast".
Character Generating Programs. In projects that involve the development of a number of pre-scripted
virtual characters, it should be possible to make use of "character generators"–programs that semi-
randomly select character likes/dislikes, beliefs, etc. from large lists of possibilities. Writing teams can
work with generated character-trait lists, or they can be fed directly to skilled improvisers, with results
edited or modified by writing teams. These kinds of programs are useful primarily because many writers
and improvising actors work best when some characters elements are pre-defined for them. It helps to
"trigger" the imagination.
For example, if a team knows that a character is 6'2", with blonde hair, a high school education, two
boyfriends and loves astrophysics, broccoli, and silent films, brainstorming teams can immediately come
up with all kinds of plot situations.
Using Personality Systems to Generate Character "Tendencies". Teams could also make use of
 Virtual Drama | 26

personality systems that have been devised over the centuries to explain various aspects of human
behavior and misbehavior. For example, Aruveydic medicine considers three basic body types–which
people usually possess in pairs. The physical and psychological characteristics that are attributed to these
types (created, after all, from observations made over centuries) can make for strikingly complex and
believable personality outlines.
There are any number of personality systems (including modern astrology) out there. Interesting
combinations of systems which are primarily created to develop virtual characters might, in turn, offer
new insight into the behavior of "real" characters.
Sampling Lives Directly. Extensive pre-scripted dram projects–especially those that involve some form
of interaction between characters and travelers–might want to physically record the words and actions of
people placed in certain real-life situations. In some cases these "life models" could be paid to live in
observed communities for a period of time. In other situations–where particular occupations or behaviors
need to be sampled, participants could be observed directly in their work environment.
Participants in Reality TV programs are generally required to sign over all digital rights to their
appearances –– which might mean weeks or months of 24/7 digital sampling of their lives.
In all of these cases, of course, privacy and legal concerns will have to be carefully considered.
Character Dialogue Databases. When a large amount of interaction is required between travelers and
characters, pre-scripted characters are at their most vulnerable. Even when strategies are used which
covertly limit the kinds of interaction that are permissible, enormous numbers of character responses have
to be prepared (and stored in databases) to cover contingencies.
The least painful approach I've heard of for generating large amounts of character dialogue was provided
by actors who spent a lot of time performing in interactive dinner mysteries–where the characters mingle
with the audience: "You need to know the character." "You need to trust the character."
For our purposes this translates into "get someone to really 'become' the character, then ask them a hell of
a lot of questions, and record and categorize what they say.
You get someone to "become" a character either by interviewing a person who is the character, or by
using the various character-generation / team-writing / improvisation techniques I discussed above to
produce enough material for someone (probably an actor) to "get inside the character". Then find a
number of different people to ask them questions. And finally, record, digitize, and categorize the
questions and answers.
Live "Helpers" for Pre-Scripted Character Dialogue. Dram projects with generous budgets could also
use the "help desk approach" for interaction between characters and travelers.
Let's say, for example, that Sandra and Mostroiani Iglasi are extremely interested in the life of Pablo
Picasso and have paid handsomely to participate in a dramatic virtual event where they get to view
different episodes from his life–set in authentic locales. As part of the experience, they get to sit down
with the great man at several points and ask him anything they want. (With the understanding that this is
going to be a real, feisty Picasso character and not a bald Santa Claus with artistic talent and a Spanish
accent.)
As the Iglasi‘s ask him questions, a live operator monitors the communication and "chooses" appropriate
answers from a database. Fortunately (for the operator, anyway), people rarely ask original (or insightful)
questions, and an experienced operator should be able to pick up the "drift" of the questions pretty
rapidly.
All that the "helper" has to do is to choose (speak or type) a response number and the database supplies
the character with appropriate dialogue.
Historical Characters in Fixed Script drams. Out of the innumerable kinds of characters of interest to
 Virtual Drama | 27

dram producers, one type is much more likely to require pre-scripted dialogue and situations: the
historical figure for whom some amount of written or anecdotal material is available.
Since people creating historical characters are likely to be doing so either for educational purposes or out
of personal interest, there will be a strong tendency on the part of writer/producer teams to use the
characters' actual words–especially if they have been recorded in some way and are verifiably authentic.
The obvious problem with this approach is that recorded communications such as speeches or letters are
either carefully crafted formal presentations directed toward particular people for specific reasons, or take
the form of lists of events. "Yesterday, I met the Ambassador to Italy. Nice chap. Bad Toupee." There are
a few public figures who have written extremely detailed and personally revealing communications, of
course, but even when writing personal diaries, those very much in the public eye often have their eyes
firmly fixed on future biographers and the fickle gaze of history.
Even if the recorded details of public figures‘ lives accurately portray their personalities, the writing style
of letters, speeches and diaries differs so substantially from "natural" speech that attempts to use these
sources as dialogue often produce awkward results.
And... with all of the historical and political fervor that tends to surround well-known figures, any attempt
to produce realistic dialogue also creates controversy–with the effect that scriptwriters follow the path of
least resistance (or of least litigation).
The more sanctified (or vilified) an historical character has become in the public imagination, usually
through textbook and media mythmaking, the more difficult it becomes to produce a balanced, believable
character portrayal in any form. Add to this the fact that many of the major public figures who have been
ruthless enough or lucky enough to have the history of their existence passed down to posterity were not,
to put it mildly, "nice people". That makes creating historically accurate characters (for educational
purposes), who are also interesting to interact with one-on-one, quite a challenge.
I suspect that the only way out of this dilemma will be to make dram character development tools so
accessible that a number of competing versions of famous people can be produced. And, if the physical
surroundings and "ordinary people" of the period are portrayed more-or-less accurately, savvy travelers
may be able to slip away and avoid meeting the "greats" altogether.
Realism in Fixed Script Dialogue. One persistent fact of human communication that puts me in favor of
using sampling to generate dialogue is that relatively few people speak in complete sentences, and only
the most literary or pedantic of us speak in paragraphs.
While stop-and-start and circular conversations are a fact of life, they aren't used extensively in TV and
film because 1) there is a limited amount of time in which to tell complete stories; 2) audiences find
"natural" speech annoying if overused (Harold Pinter and David Mamet notwithstanding), and 3) because
we more or less expect characters to be cleverer or more articulate than most "real" people. In immersive
experiences, though, travelers will be expecting to interact with "people", and so developer/writer teams
will have to walk a fine line between creating believably human dialogue–with its hesitations,
forgetfulness, lies, and evasions–and boring the traveler with uninteresting characters.
What People Actually Talk About. In developing databases of pre-scripted character dialogue it can
help to narrow the volume of necessary material by examining what people talk about in "normal"
conversations. There's quite a lot of interesting formal research on this subject, but I'm basing my
comments on detailed observations I made over a period of months in public, quasi-public, and work-
environment spaces.
We tend to talk to people about: what we‘re doing at the moment; what we‘ve done or are going to do;
other people; and our own thoughts and feelings. That‘s about it.
We talk about what we're doing or observing at the moment. "Look at the ducks." "Do you
have invoice number 13624A-62?" In shared activities, such as jobs, superior/subordinate pairs
 Virtual Drama | 28

tend to talk more about the job than do job-equals. In highly repetitive job tasks–or where
conversing individuals have "routinized" the job activities, we often don't talk about the job at all,
unless a problem situation arises or a trainee is part of the conversation group.
I once observed a quite extraordinary park employee who was able to do involved –– and
sometimes dangerous –– landscaping while simultaneously keeping up two conversations about
co-workers' home lives and a chess game with a park bench regular.
A common problem faced by scriptwriters is how to introduce job activity details so that the
audience will know what characters are doing –– especially in situations where the activity is
important to the plot and where watching characters working doesn't reveal much about the
occupation. Very often authors introduce a trainee character or a character who knows nothing
about the work situation just to be able to fill in the audience. More subtle approaches allow the
audience to slowly pick up information, one comment at a time –– gradually building a picture of
the work.
We talk about what we've done in the last week; what we plan to do for the rest of the week
and the logistics of getting it done. "I took the kids to the new swimming pool on Monday."
"Yeah, we're going to strip the varnish off of the living room floor on Saturday. Could Jenny
come over to your house all afternoon?"
Activities surrounding common interests (homes, children, food, purchases, finances,
automobiles, media programs) seem to cover about 90% of conversations between people who
know each other well enough to talk about themselves. While the tasks or objects themselves
differ somewhat among cultures and countries, there is a remarkable commonality of human life
at this level.
We talk about other people whom we know, or know about. "Did you hear that Geri's cousin
had twins?" "I don't see what Marina sees in that guy." "So what do you think Mario is going to
do when he finds out?" We have insatiable appetites for the lives of other people. In U.S. culture
women tend to be interested in extended life details, and men tend to be interested if it affects
them directly or "strategically".
We talk about our thoughts and feelings. "I really don't want to do this." "That guy is a real
snake." "I really like the way you look tonight."
Since the weave of the social fabric depends on us not talking in public about what we really
think, these conversations tend to be between confidantes or with those having other strong
relationships–shared in private settings.
Since those of us in industrialized societies spend most of our daily lives working, sleeping,
preparing food, child rearing, or working around the home, there is relatively little time for this
sort of activity–which is one reason why it is so over-represented in dramatized stories on TV and
film.

Conclusion

The first sets of immersive virtual characters we‘re likely to see will have their personalities, dialogue,
actions and reactions pre-set, with interaction with the traveler limited to responses to key words, to
specific situations, or to extensive menus of choices. For extended immersion in stories, this will require
extensive databases of dialogue and plot alternatives – which are likely to originate from script teams,
from ―mining‖ existing stories, or from live sampling of individuals.
The control this allows developers over the character-traveler interaction is substantial, but the longer or
more realistic the characters are required to be, the greater the headache this preparation becomes, and the
 Virtual Drama | 29

more likely it is that developers will turn to automated characters.

Virtual Drama | 30
 Virtual Drama | 31

Automated Characters

Introduction

Most people who think about developing characters for lengthy, interactive, immersive environments
rapidly come to the conclusion that some form of automation is called for.
If, for example, you are developing a medieval dram based on the Arthurian legends, you are probably
going to want to extend the life of the dram by having it do double-duty as some sort of educational
module. There's nothing like hefting a broadsword or living in a dank, smelly castle for a couple of days
to give a student the sense of a period.
In this situation, you are going to want to allow travelers to talk with characters and to participate in the
life of the virtual community. Even if you decide to severely limit the amount of interaction or the context
in which characters can communicate with travelers, you are still going to have to automate the process.
To do this really well, you'd have to create independent "virtual people"–– a topic I take up in the next
chapter.
There is an intermediary stage, however, when virtual characters aren't quite "people" but have behaviors
flexible enough to make them "seem" like people –– at least some of the time. I call them "automated
characters".

How This Chapter Will Proceed

Because automated characters are likely to be used for drams for quite some time –– until independent
character systems can be developed –– I take some time here to outline possible development approaches,
aimed at those who are thinking of taking virtual character development to the personality structure /
socialization level.
First I‘ll look at the notion of extending the ―lives‖ of existing characters through various forms of
sampling. Then we move into some ways of generating simple personalities –– through behavior
generators, personality systems approaches, and life databases and rules.
Human personalities don‘t exist in a vacuum, so I then discuss social interactions among automated
characters and between automated characters and travelers.
Finally, I take up the issue of how to control automated characters, and how these kinds of characters
might be generated by travelers themselves.
 Virtual Drama | 32

Extending Existing Characters

In a way, the process of developing automated characters parallels the task faced by most writers: they
have to develop characters and stories and then imagine to themselves what this particular character might
do or say in particular situations. Authors of interactive dramas (such as dinner murder mysteries) often
go further and provide actors with character information that will allow them to answer common audience
questions about the characters–in addition to scripted dialogue.
Automated virtual characters have to have personality and they need to express that personality through
behavior and words.
The time-honored way of creating characters is to "borrow" them from someone else's fiction or from life.
At the moment this is more likely to mean licensing or paying royalties for the use of a character. A
character's appearance, behavior in specific situations, and language (style, vocabulary, and peculiarities)
can all be extracted from existing stories using computer analysis techniques–especially with characters
who have appeared in a number of novels, stories, or other media.
For example, when the Sherlock Holmes characters went "off copyright", there was a flurry of activity as
entrepreneurs provided dictionaries, databases, and compendia of character dialogue and actions for
authors who might want to add to the series without offending the legion of Baker Street fanatics.
This sort of "character extraction" provides distinct limits and guidelines for character development and
use, and, while the amount of material extracted will rarely be sufficient for extended interactive drams, it
points developers in the right direction and at the same time provides a metaphorical rolled-up-newspaper
(in the form of critics, fans, graduate students, etc.) to swat developers on the nose when they go seriously
astray in representing characters.
Of course, extraction techniques are also likely to be of interest because well-known characters have a
built-in audience, and in some cases the original authors may be available to help extend the life of
characters.
Character Mining. A related technique is what I think of as the "NSA approach to character analysis".
(The U.S. National Security Agency analyzes masses of communication –– in all forms –– to look for
tendencies, ideas, threats, information, etc.).
You could, for example, load all of the original sources of Greek and Roman mythology into your
computer and look for particular types of gods, then extract the information that applies to a particular
type to give you the outline of a personality "type".
Or, you could feed in the collected plays of those French and Spanish authors who wrote literally
thousands of "formula" plays with stock characters. In this case you would not only get character outlines
for particular characters, you'd also get a very extensive database of dialogue.
For example, if you have the patience (and courage) to plow through a number of Greek, Spanish and
French "formula" writers of comedy you'll find virtually every "situation comedy" plot and character
"type" you've ever seen on television–since those ancient plots and characters have been actively and
quite consciously "mined" by harried TV script writing teams through the years.
While character "extraction" provides you with the "essence" of a particular character, character "mining"
provides substantial amount of information about a class, or "type" of character.
Script Teams. I already mentioned script teams as a way of developing characters and dialogue for fixed-
script drams. With teams composed of writer/idea-generators who have wide knowledge of stories and
story characters, vast numbers of interrelated characters/situations can be brainstormed. A major
advantage here is that such teams understand that story characters need to have unique personalities for
 Virtual Drama | 33

dramatic use. Teams can also provide outlines of entire communities of virtual characters. These outlines
can be developed into full characters by using various automation processes (discussed below).
Multidisciplinary Teams. An important step on the way to virtual character automation (and to virtual
people) is the assembling of teams of authors, linguists, psychologists, designers, computer scientists,
physiologists, etc. to provide guidelines for full-scale communities of virtual characters.
Say, for example, that a dram developer wants to produce a community called "Smalltown, USA"–based
on the persistent nostalgia many people in the U.S. seem to have for a simpler, quieter, happier way of
life. A team of historians, sociologists, linguists, psychologists, writers and directors can determine what
kinds of values/personalities we associate with "Smalltown". A group of anthropologists/ linguists would
be asked to provide a small town USA language (vocabulary and dialect) –– perhaps as a collection of
media/fictional representations of small town talk.
Sociologists, cultural anthropologists and experts in the history of craft and technology could provide a
great deal of detail on the social and occupational life of Smalltown –– including the sort of
interdependence (every one knows everyone else's business) that produces "stable" communities, evokes
nostalgia, and drives young adults screaming to big cities.
Such teams can also help dram developers establish extensive databases of languages, dialects,
personality characteristics, behaviors, clothing, personal objects, and so forth that can be applied to
enormous numbers of characters.
It goes without saying that involving large numbers of experts from different disciplines in the
development of dram communities could substantially aid our understanding of non-virtual behavior and
social process.

Designing Automated Character Personalities

Like/Dislike/Belief ("L/D/B") Generators. Once the general outlines of character types/ personalities
have been established, details need to be filled in using processes which fit the current notion of
"automation".
One of the simplest of these processes is what I call a "Like/Dislike/Belief generator".
If you think about it, most human communication consists of talking about 1) what we're doing right now;
2) what we've done in the past; 3) what other people are doing or have done; 4) what we
like/dislike/believe.
From a storytelling point of view, Items 1-3 really have to do with what is happening (or has happened) in
a story. LDBs are closer to actual personality–since they can transcend a given story.
For example, the character Louisa loves checkered draperies and bright pastel fabrics on furniture. She
enjoys hunting and fishing, hates peas, prefers men over 6'5"; believes that horses are nobler than
humans.
It is from these bits of information that we construct much of our impression of other people, and a great
deal of early-relationship bonding time is taken up with comparisons which amount to lists of likes and
dislikes. "She really hates opera and loves my rugged-guy image, but I love to sing arias in the pickup
truck. What can I do?"
Lists of LDBs can form much of the basis of a character's personality. In fact, actors "flesh out" their
characterizations with such lists to be able to "embody" a character on stage/film. This particular acting
approach assumes that you need to be able to go beyond the words in the script and create a "person".
 Virtual Drama | 34

By developing lists of LDBs, an actor can (if asked) improvise scenes as the character –– which is pretty
much what we're asking automated characters to do in Virtual Drama.
One way of creating a virtual character LDB generator is to develop an extensive list of items about
which a character might have an opinion. This list should have thousands of items to be effective. A
randomization program can then 'create" a character by assigning levels of like/dislike/belief to individual
items. For items highly liked or highly disliked, a history of the character in relation to the item can be
created. "I hate peas. I remember I had peas stuck in my throat once when I was a kid. Haven't been able
to get one down since."
Another way of generating LDB lists amounts to "focused sampling". A researcher/developer pays a
person to fill out an extensive LDB questionnaire, along with information about why an item is highly
liked/disliked/believed and with any immediate memory that springs to mind. Through L/D/B sampling
of this sort over a couple of days, you can get quite a wealth of information. And, of course, you can also
have authors fill out this sort of character information for characters they create.
Those creating family-relationship drams can extend LDB sampling to existing families by having family
members (privately, separately and confidentially) fill out LDB questionnaires plus LDB specifics about
other family members and their behavior –– including memories of events that they believe are part of the
reason for their like/dislikes/beliefs.
By mixing and matching information from several "similar" families, you can create a profile of a small
community.
Using Multiple LDB Systems To Simulate Mechanisms Of Internal Conflict Within/Between
Automated Characters. An interesting feature of natural human LDB systems is that sometimes we have
internal conflicts –– especially about beliefs. Often we present a different set of LDBs to the world than
we hold internally. Many times our relationships with other people are formed, at least initially, by
comparing LDBs.
This means that once we have created internal/external LDB systems for individual automated characters,
we can construct life rules approaches that cause them to display various emotional or tension states based
on conflict/congruity within themselves or with others.
For example, let's say that the automated character "Marion" maintains to her friends that she is quite
generous, but in fact she is "thrifty" to the point where her friends would be shocked. When a public
situation arises where one of her friends pointedly asks for a small contribution to a worthy cause, Marion
has a conflict, and tries to avoid giving the contribution while maintaining her self-generated reputation
for generosity. If Marion is starting a relationship with someone, her public persona of generosity would
be compared with her potential partner's public persona, but at some point the "true" beliefs of both will
surface.
As a matter of fact, some current computer dating services use extensive LDB lists –– weighted in various
ways –– to produce likely matches. By establishing particular criteria for automated character
relationships, a quick scan of relevant LDB items might be able to tell the story controller what kind of
relationship is "most likely" between two characters.
You can also see that if we have a pretty full LDB set for Marion's private and public personas, we can
generate some interesting situations, and more importantly we can set up a basis for emotion and tension
states within/between characters without knowing much besides the public/private LDBs of a group of
characters.
Of course people do change. For an automated character like Marion change would require having some
new rules "phased in" –– based on some series of story developments prompting the change.
LDB Sociograms. Those of you involved in multiple character story development will immediately see
how this sort of approach can be made much more complex by turning simple two-person list
 Virtual Drama | 35

comparisons into a circle of comparisons (or a "sociogram") where we see what each of a number of
characters feels about other characters' public LDB's, and whether they believe other characters' public
positions. When we combine this with each character's own public/private LDB conflicts, we pretty
quickly get to a model not too far afield from human small group dynamics.
To give a silly example, suppose we have six characters discussing a particular friend of theirs. Two of
the characters know that a third is having an affair with the person they are discussing. The other three
characters know that the person they are talking about is having an affair with "someone". All of the
characters are likely to have a certain level of tension talking about the situation, but three of the
characters are going to lie, and will want to control the conversation, and one character (the one having
the affair) is likely to be very tense indeed. All of this could be triggered by mapping relative beliefs
against each other and having characters‘ non-verbal systems reflect their internal states.
Simulating Personality Disorders and Neuroses using LDBs. Of course, when conflict between public
and private LDB's becomes very large and very persistent, we have a mechanism for simulating
"problem" behavior.
Remember, we are primarily doing this to generate character behavior in stories. Automated and
Independent characters make the testing of theories of personality and behavior possible, I believe, but
"accurate" personality analyses aren't necessary for us to be able to simulate behavior for characters any
more than an actor has to become psychotic to play a psychotic. And... I would expect that "accurate"
system models for most common severe psychiatric disorders would be very complex indeed.
Here's an example of a relatively "straightforward" disorder: a phobia. If, every time his hands touch a
surface that appears to have dust on it, the character Martin feels tension which activates a "rule" that says
he has to find soap and water to wash his hands, that rule alone will produce significant complications in
the world of the character. He is likely to have to carry soap around with him; if he is responsive to people
at all, he will try to hide this behavior; close relationships will become difficult; the places he will be
willing to go will be severely reduced, and so on.
One thing that actors have noticed is that you only need to "internalize" one or more of these "unusual"
life rules to produce quite complex behaviors. The trick is that there are certain trigger behaviors, that the
behaviors are only triggered if the "need" or external situation reaches a certain level of urgency, and that
the actual type of behavior depends on where the character is (and with whom).
Personal History Generator. A companion to the Like/Dislike/Belief Generator is the Personal History
Generator, which provides detailed information (at random, or through live sampling) about the personal
history of an individual virtual character.
A thorough personal history questionnaire should give you almost as much information about a particular
character as, say, a major spy agency would be likely to want to collect about a world leader. That is to
say, you'd prefer to have detailed information about everything in the character's past and present life,
including family, friends, education, relationships, occupations and hobbies, etc.
If you add a personal history generator profile to a like/dislike/belief generator profile of a character, you
already have quite a bit of information that can immediately be used as dialogue – after it is passed
through a vocabulary/dialect filter, of course.
Building Character Databases. For large scale virtual character development, I'd see using existing
extensive databases of food items, occupations, and so forth as initial resources from which to draw
like/dislike/belief and personal history items. By building "common sense logic traps" into selections
from these databases (e.g. if a character is 4 years old they most likely aren't married and haven't gone to
college), you can build a body of personal information about characters quite rapidly.
For example, let's say I need a group of virtual characters in their 20's who live in New York City. The
writing team has established certain criteria for them: they should have different occupations and
background, should live near each other, but none of them should have been born in New York.
 Virtual Drama | 36

The dram developer takes these filtering criteria and uses like/dislike/belief and personal history
generators to come up with several sets of possible characters. The outlined characters ―audition‖ for
producers, writers, etc. and additional filtering and criteria are added. In this way an entire town full of
characters can be created fairly rapidly.
As you see, filtering mechanisms are crucial with this sort of automation process – with key filtering
constellations being:
- country and region (affects language, dialect, foods, etc.)
- race, ethnicity (affects family structure, social roles)
- urban, suburban, rural (distinct lifestyle differences)
- education (affects speech, lifestyle, occupation)
- occupation (determines how most time spent, speech, etc.)
- family, relationships
- hobbies/avocations (how much time not working is spent)
- medical history
- personality criteria
Even in our increasingly global-interactive world, applying just the first four of these sets of filters will
dramatically reduce the amount of information that has to be made available from databases.
For example, an Hispanic woman raised in rural New Mexico and educated in Medicine at Harvard
University has a unique experiential base. She will know something about the desert, is likely to
understand some Spanish, and has some clear reasons for studying medicine at Harvard. Since the study
of medicine requires an enormous time commitment, we also can be pretty sure that her available time in
college/medical school (even assuming that virtual education will become more prominent) will be quite
limited, and so the number of activities she pursues during that time will also be limited.

Personality Systems Approaches

Like/dislike/belief and personal history generators can fill out a great deal of the "what" of an individual
character. What they don't provide is the "who" –– the emotions, behaviors, choices and decision
strategies that we think of as representing a "person".
I suspect that most of the people who have ever lived have developed their own systems for
understanding the personalities of those around them. Such systems (including what we call ―common-
sense sayings‖) provide an early-warning system against the inconvenient/dangerous behavior of others,
and a tool to influence others to act in ways that are advantageous to us.
Certain individuals (political, social, and military leaders, religious authorities, shamans, healers,
criminals, etc.) have had more than a little interest in being able to predict/influence the behavior of
others, and have developed systems of interpretation which were sometimes written down and/or passed
down to their successors.
Over the centuries, certain of these systems have been codified into "rules". For example there is
astrology–which depends entirely upon time and place of birth and the varying positions of the earth
relative to the heavens. Another interesting system is Aruyvedic Medicine–which divides individuals into
16 groups based on body "type" and extensively describes both physical and psychological characteristics
for each type. Many of the ancient systems represent the combined experience of thousands of
observations passed down over centuries –– often secretly, which keeps the information concentrated.
 Virtual Drama | 37

In the 19th & 20th centuries, there was an explosion in systems explaining human behavior–from
psychoanalysis to family systems theory to serial killer profiles to biorhythms.
Such explanatory systems can be used as personality generators, which can add emotional (and physical)
details to characters, and can provide additional filters for like/dislike and personal history databases.
Part of the beauty of using existing personality theories/systems to develop virtual characters lies in the
fact that a group of characters developed using some combination of personality systems can then become
a population on which to (crudely) test the efficacy/extensibility of the systems themselves.
For our purposes, we can divide existing personality systems into three general categories:
1) physical (ancient medical and shamanic practices)
2) relationship (psychological and social theory)
3) cyclical (astronomical, biorhythm, seasonal)
The systems which will be of greatest use to us in developing virtual characters, are, of course, those
which provide the greatest character detail, or which specifically predict behavioral events/results/patterns
given certain circumstances.
If we aren't interested in testing the validity/efficacy of the personality systems themselves–but only want
to use them to generate characters, we can provide our own simplified versions.
By combining basic "rules" from various physical, psychological, social, and cyclical explanatory
systems, we can produce character personality structures that are wonderfully complex and diverse.
For example, let's throw together Aruyveda (physical), Jungian (psychological), family systems theory
(social), and astrology (cyclical).
Let's say that our "personality generator" randomly decides that a character will be a pitta/kaffa (in the
aruyvedic system). This is an athletic body type with particular skin tone, certain eating requirements (or
else imbalance/illness occurs), and general lifestyle choices (usually quite sensory, relatively illness-free,
but prone to overheating and not often financially well off).
Part of the power of some of these very old explanatory systems is that they rely on observations handed
down over hundreds (sometimes thousands) of years and represent trans-generational tendencies.
Next, our personality generator goes to one of the various Jungian-based therapies and chooses a
personality type for our character–complete with a discussion of childhood events, family history, likely
occupations, behavioral characteristics, and "tendencies" in relationship. The Jungian type also predicts
"problem" areas and areas of greatest ability.
Given the information the first two systems has provided, we can use a tool such as family systems theory
or an offshoot of the popular Myers-Briggs system to see how our character is likely to behave in various
social/relationship situations.
Finally, we might perform some reverse-astrology –– using these personality characteristics to choose an
astrological sign for the character. For example, a character who keeps on going back and forth in
decision making might be a Pisces. We could then choose the exact date and place of birth within the sign
range and place as needed for the dram the character will be part of. Then, using already computerized
astrological systems, we can generate information about "tendencies" for each day in the character's entire
life. From that we can build a fairly detailed past history.
As a result of applying these four explanatory systems, our personality generator can provide an
enormous amount of information about our character–including lots of emotional "hooks" and "triggers".
By factoring in a certain amount of randomness into the overall system (especially into the cyclical
pieces), we can produce a "life plan" good enough to help construct an actual character.
 Virtual Drama | 38

Of course, various systems will overlap/conflict in their determination of personal characteristics, but the
amount of detail that can be developed using them will be well worth the effort needed to resolve
conflicts.
Preparing Current Explanatory Systems to Become Personality Generators. For us to prepare
existing explanatory systems for use as part of a virtual character personality generator, it will be useful
to:
- lay out the system as a series of rules and predicted behaviors
- simplify the system as necessary to offer cause/effect relationships
- test "modules" of the simplified system for their ability to reliably generate personality structures,
responses to life situations and other pertinent life details.
Combining personality systems is a bit trickier. We have to take the simplified individual systems and see
which part of which system seems to be best at generating which specific elements of personality. Above
all, remember that we're not creating some sort of metasystem to explain human behavior, just cobbling
together a way to generate unique character personalities as quickly as possible.
It seems to me that out of the various personality explanatory systems I've examined, the ones best suited
for use as part of a character generation process are:
- "Folk" systems which use just a few criteria to generate lots of personal data, but are themselves
based on large numbers of observations passed down over generations.
- Detailed behavioral systems which are clearly explained, and offer definite cause/effect
relationships. (Remember, for the purpose of Virtual Drama it doesn't matter how well they
"really" work.)

Life Databases And Life Rules

Once detailed information has been gathered/generated about a character, it needs to be put in a form that
will allow the character to act.
A Life Database consists of the innumerable bits of information pertaining to a single character. This
includes language, personal history, likes/dislikes, and so forth, and is organized in ways that will make
the information easiest to access when it is needed.
The key here is that the information is pre-selected for a particular character and doesn't have to be
extracted "on-the-fly" from very large, generalized databases.
Life rules constitute an "expert system" for the behavior of an individual character. They are the
personality structures which govern a character's behavior –– reduced to an automated system of
situational criteria, and dependent on information provided by the character's Life Database and/or by the
story controller program.
For example, the character Zoba is offered a cigarette by the character Mooz. Zoba has just quit smoking
and knows that Mooz is testing her and would like her to fail. The "rule" might be that in this sort of
conflict/avoidance situation (Mooz is her lover), Zoba loses control. Since the cigarette is the nearest
available object, she throws it at Mooz and stalks off.
Such rule systems must allow for change (not too much, and carefully motivated), and learning (added to
the Life Database, with new rules constructed periodically).
One of the more interesting aspects of life rules has to do with what you might call "dual explanation
 Virtual Drama | 39

logic". For any given character action or behavior, there are often two explanations: the actual reason for
the behavior and the reason for the behavior that would be given by the character him/herself.
For example, let's say that Luna has just stolen Verna's hair comb. The actual reason for this theft might
be that she didn't want Vera to look good. The stated reason might be that Vera stole something else from
her (a lie). Luna might also actually believe an explanation provided by her mother–that she can't stand
someone else having something she doesn't have. That‘s three explanations for the same event.
This sort of complex situation is very common in human behavior because control over the process of
externalizing internal thoughts allows us to lie to others–and to ourselves.
It is just this sort of complexity that makes it important to generate sophisticated virtual characters using
processes which individualize likes/ dislikes/ beliefs, personal history and personality.

A Simple But Useful Applied Life Rules System

Once a fairly thorough set of LDBs, life rules, and a life database have been set up for a character, it
should be possible to design "shortcuts" to the behavior of an individual automated character in a
particular scene by creating a set of "most likely behaviors" in certain situations for that character. Two
useful types of shortcut behaviors are motivation/action shortcuts and ethics filters.
Motivation/Action Shortcuts are used by some actors in creating the emotional underpinning of a
particular scene. This takes the form of "want" statements. What does Martin want from Ellen right now.
(Answer: to stop lying to him.) How is Martin feeling right now. (Answer: has a stomach ache and a
headache from drinking too much.) What does Martin want to do about this? (Answer: Just go away
quietly.) You'll notice that both the motivations and the actions in this example require an understanding
of Martin's general life rules and of his relationship/personal history with Ellen. But it his single
underlying need/ want/ motivation that will drive the action and dialogue of the scene.
Ethics Filters are life rules which refer to behaviors which characters will and won't perform under given
conditions. If we know, for example, that Martin would never yell at Ellen for lying to him because they
would be "unfair" and "you don't yell at women", we have reduced the number of possible Martin
behaviors drastically in some situations. For our purposes, the most useful "ethics" life rules are those
which find a particular action or behavior "unthinkable" or "something I would always do". Rules which
indicate ambiguity are useful in presenting complex motivations, etc., but increase rather than decrease
the number of options the character has to "sort through".

Dialogue And Non-Verbal Behavior Generators

When we are observing (or interacting with) a virtual character, we hear them speak particular words with
particular tone and expression. We see the character display particular facial expressions and body
movement. We fit an interpretation of what they are saying and doing into our own cultural/social
understanding of similar behaviors and into the context of the story, and say that we understand or don't
understand the character.
Words. Each individual has his/her own vocabulary, pitch, tone, inflection of particular words. All of
these elements shift slightly as we change emotional states or activity. (Try singing Jingle Bells while you
are dashing through the snow at a crowded city intersection.) We also use different sets and patterns of
words, tone, and all the rest depending on who we are with. Many of these patterns are set by language,
culture, subculture and "tradition". Some verbal patterns may be used by us to deliberately set us apart
from others.
This means that when dram developers go about automating the words spoken by virtual characters it isn't
as "simple" as a fixed script situation where all of the words/tone etc. are pre-set.
 Virtual Drama | 40

The automated virtual character must have:

- a base vocabulary (total known words and phrases)
- rules for situational use of that vocabulary
- a base vocal tone (when relaxed)
- rules for shifts in tone, pitch, and volume (e.g. in bed with mate)
- rules for not speaking (e.g. angry at someone)
Most of these rules should be carefully tied in with–or generated by–the character's life rules.
For example, a character might be discussing her occupation with a friend. The events come from her
personal history database, but the tone, volume, and pace of her actual speech might be influenced by
physical and emotional features –– such as the fact that she is dead tired, has had a very bad day at work,
and is talking with someone who is not a good listener.
The way this character expresses emotion will be a also function of culture, class, education and personal
characteristics.
Facial Expression And Gesture. An extraordinary amount of the information we process from other
people comes from their nonverbal behavior (facial expression, gesture, and movement).
Facial expression and gesture are one major way we communicate emotion, tension,
agreement/disagreements and general like and dislike. It is a major channel through which we express our
―humanosity‖–including culture, class and general emotional nature.
In fact, the lack of facial and gestural expression is the main way that "zombies" or "robots" are portrayed
in stories. They speak (more or less) in monotone, have little or no facial expression, and gesture rigidly,
almost mechanically.
To generate a character's non-verbal behavior reliably means that some sort of baseline set of experiences
needs to be set for a character. These can be based on culture, class, education, etc, which in turn can be
sampled from human populations. There is quite a large literature on non-verbal behavior, and databases
of non-verbal characteristics have existed for some time.
Where family (or more extended) groups are involved, developers will need to take care to include
family/group similarities in expression & gesture, deciding for the particular virtual community which
movements mean what in particular contexts.
It's important to remember that facial expressions–apart from the muscle movement required to articulate
the words of a particular language–are built up within cultures/subcultures over many generations. This
means that a totally constructed character culture (not based on any particular human culture) could build
its own tone/ gesture/ expression base.
Since facial expression and gesture are directly related to what is going on around the character,
especially when communicating with others, appropriate behaviors can be triggered based on some
combination of: 1) situational context (she saw a famous guy going by); 2) word context (her people tend
to raise their eyebrows when asking a question); 3) physical state (she just had caffeine and is especially
animated); 4) emotional context (the person she is talking with is the person who caused her mother to
divorce her father); and 5) other environmental variables (there is a jackhammer tearing up the street).
Above all, what dram developers need to avoid are those automated cartoon gestures and facial
expressions which are stereotyped/ systematized for ease of duplication. In 3D especially, such
approaches will give characters that "zombie" look.
If culture, class, regional norms are established for groups of characters, a particular character's non-
verbal behavior can be randomly "tweaked" based on their function in the story or in the virtual
 Virtual Drama | 41

community.
Since emotional states/ physical stresses tend to last for hours, the developer doesn't have to worry about
constantly adjusting the emotional/ physical overlap. We say, "You look out of it, today, Maria", not
"You've been sad for five minutes and forty seconds, Maria, what's the matter?" For approximating daily
states, explanatory systems such as astrology and biorhythm should be quite useful.
The non-verbal orchestra. We can compare developing character nonverbals to composing a symphony.
In this case we have language-based expressions which are common for most people who speak the
language. Overlap onto this multiple "instruments" which support cultural variations (culture, class,
education) and finally, the "melody" line of individual variation. The performance of the composition is
also influenced by physical and emotional stress, which have overall effects on the composition:
You can see that for complex automated characters, it becomes important for them to "carry their
behaviors with them" –– in the sense that their behavioral repertoire for a particular period of time should
be pre-selected and able to be rapidly accessed–as contrasted with retrieving it from some central memory
pool.
By having character behavior "modularized" in this way, moment to moment interactions (see the section
on Flow) can be much more "fluid" and closer to life.

Social Interactions Among Automated Characters

For fixed-script characters, interaction among virtual characters is, of course, entirely pre-determined, and
either follows pre-set storylines or is explicitly controlled by a "story controller" program.
Automated characters need to have some sort of social interaction system established to allow them to
communicate with each other "normally". There are three basic ways of getting automated characters to
interact:
- Have a story controller tell, hint, or trigger the character to initiate a particular interaction with
another virtual character.
- Create standard interactive structures for different cultures, classes, levels of education, familial
and relationship situations within a community of virtual characters, and let them "play out"
interactions.
- "Embed" within the personality/ personal history/ language structures of an individual character
the "need" to respond to certain words, phrases, tone, expressions and gestures in particular ways
depending on their relationship with other virtual characters.
The first option turns control over to some centralized mechanism (which runs counter to the whole
notion of automated characters –– although there are certainly situations such as major plot shifts or
relationship developments –– where we might want interventions of this sort).
Options two and three, when taken together, have more of an automated "flavor" to them, although I‘d
have to say that just thinking about the complexity of this sort of approach in designing all but the
simplest of automated character interactions is what drove me to the notion of creating fully independent
characters.
Setting Cultural Norms. One way of developing character interaction structures for automated virtual
characters who aren't "grown", but start out more-or-less fully developed, is to set cultural "norms" for a
wide range of interactions within the story community, to plot characters' history of interaction/
relationship with other characters as part of the development of their personal histories, and to then
 Virtual Drama | 42

overlay individual character's personality/ physical/ emotional state requirements onto the actual
interaction.
In taking this approach, (and assuming that baseline language, expression, gesture, etc. have been
established for the community), it makes sense to develop an entire community of automated characters at
the same time.
For example, let's say that we establish Blahville, a small community of not-very-interesting virtual
characters. Let's assume that they have all lived in the community for most of their lives and speak the
same language and nonverbal dialect –– with the usual human social and individual variations.
Let's also assume that the community is large enough so that a "normal" range of relationships is possible:
- Service relationships (customer:clerk, waiter:diner).
- Acquaintance relationships:
- social (go to parties, belong to social club)
- occupational (work together, but don't socialize)
- activity (have same hobby, sport, other activity)
- Familial Relationships:
- distant (little contact)
- close (some-to-constant contact, don't live together)
- live together (various possible relationships)
- Marriage/Couple Bonding Relationships
Once the nature of these sorts of relationships has been established for the community, we can create
specific, but standardized, interaction patterns at each of the many different levels of relationship.
For example, in Blahville, service personnel might always make direct eye contact with a customer, and
always address them by their first name (which is, after all, tattooed on their necks), but never use the
word "you". Mated couples might always display affection elaborately in public, but never in private.
A number of rules of interaction –– even specific standard dialogue interchanges –– can be established for
each level of relationship. Live sampling of human social interactions will be particularly useful in putting
together these rules, since any overview of the interactions of a number of non-virtual people over a
period of time will also contain patterns of individual differences from standard patterns. These off-norm
patterns are crucial in giving interactions a "natural" feeling.
Once general patterns of interaction have been established, we can begin to plot ―normal‖ personal
histories and relationships for Blahville, plotting as many kinds of interactions as we possibly can,
including casual meetings on the street, being in the same train car, and so forth.
At the same time as we establish the overall history of community interactions, we can define the
feelings/attitudes each character has toward every other member of the community.
The Sociosphere. If we were to plot out the relationships among all of the members of a community, it
could be modeled as a four dimensional matrix represented by a large ball of relationships (a sociosphere)
in which individuals are represented by points which are clustered together according to physical
proximity in the community and attached to each other by different thickness/color/materials to indicate
the nature of the relationship (closeness, duration, etc.). In this sort of model, the fourth dimension would
represent changes in relationships over time.
This sociosphere sort of representation can have practical value in modeling virtual communities of
automated characters –– especially if the points representing individuals can be "exploded" to reveal
 Virtual Drama | 43

individual character history, likes/dislikes, attitudes, and so forth, which are represented in ways that
allow the entire community of virtual individuals to be polled/sampled on a particular
attitude/belief/opinion at one point in time.
For example, you might be able to virtually enter the point representing an individual and search a catalog
for an individual's opinion on a particular subject, and those subjects themselves might have links/strands
which connect to the opinions of every other individual in the community on that particular subject ––
with physical characteristics of the link representing strength/nature of the opinion.
If the sociosphere is not simply a representation of ongoing events, but also a central control structure
which changes relationships and events, the dram developer might be able to re-structure relationships
and events for the entire society by, say, adding a previously non-existent global event to the list of
opinion possibilities and sitting back while all of the individuals of the community "react" to it. It might
also be possible to make large-scale changes to a society by "shrinking" or "expanding" the entire
community model, or eliminating an entire avenue of interaction. Of course, this assumes a highly
responsive and complex sociosphere.
Part of this responsivity might be provided by a separate hidden language in which the current state of
communal relationships are communicated to story controllers and to individual characters. If the nature
of relationships can be changed on-the-fly using the community language, individual story world
community structures could be used for entirely different story scenarios –– a great advantage in sci-fi,
fantasy, and alternate history story worlds.
At a more mundane level, a dynamic sociosphere of this sort could also allow a developer to move an
individual from one cluster to another–with the character's personality structure determining the nature of
links formed with the new cluster, and, depending on the nature and number of the character‘s
connections, might have a ripple effect on the entire society.
Determining Individual Character Choice Patterns. With virtual community "rules" established for
different forms of interaction in different situations for various community subgroups, it becomes much
easier to determine an individual character's interaction choices for any particular event by examining:
- the character's pattern of social behavior as set out in the personal history
- the character's current emotional and physical state
In many cases, characters‘ interaction won't matter very much in the scheme of a particular story because
most interactions will have little effect on general story flow –– as long as they are consistent with the
character's personality and/or not widely different than community norms.
In practice, we can break down human social interactions into simple categories based on the "privacy" of
the subject matter:
- ritual interactions and nonverbal responses (such as greetings or nodding "yes" in agreement or
"checking out" behaviors)
- discussion of the environment (surroundings, weather, physical descriptions of people)
- occupational/activity/technical discussions ("Do you know whether the A14 slots into the B26D
with a number 6 rox?")
- discussion of the activities of other individuals
- discussion of personal history
- discussion of relationship
- discussion of self (especially thoughts, feelings, etc.)
The last four categories make up the bulk of our current story form interactions, and pose the greatest
 Virtual Drama | 44

difficulty for automation.

To be able to respond (verbally or nonverbally) to a question/statement about/from another character, a
virtual character must:
- translate the verbal/nonverbal statements via community language & cultural norms.
- know the nature/duration of their relationship to the other person. This can range from "I never
met them" to "We have lived together for 14 years". This allows the character to further determine
the nature of the communication from the other character.
Once it is established that there is a relationship, personal history must be accessed to provide details to
determine the way the message will be received/translated and in what way a reply will be presented.
Then, personality structures and current emotional and physical state must be consulted to determine
whether it is appropriate to make any comment/question at all, and at what length.
This may sound like a lot of filtering, but once relationship and personal history with another character
are determined, the number of possible responses can be minimized fairly quickly.
For example, let's say that character A meets character B.
Where they meet immediately gives some clue as to their relationship. If it's in a public space, the
character must use visual and voice clues to identify the other character to be able to activate personal
history. If it's in a private space (such as an office or a bedroom), the number of possible interactions is
immediately reduced. This is particularly true, if, upon identifying character B, recent personal history
tells character A that they had "planned" to meet.
If the relationship between character A and character B has a lot of personal history, a quick scan of the
other character's facial expressions and tone (filtered through cultural norms) as compared to recent
interactions and emotions can immediately set the "feeling tone" of the interaction–from casual greeting
to unpleasant confrontation. The point here is that by having detailed personal history, relationship
records, and cultural norms pre-established for characters, it is possible for them to respond "believably"
much more readily in the beginning of interactions.
Where character A and character B don't have much personal history, nonverbal "openings" are useful,
but the first verbal interactions–often determined by story flow–are likely to consist of ritualized cultural
interactions. In a way this is easier in terms of interaction flow, but more difficult to structure if one
character needs to get a particular response (or to get a particular bit of information) from another
character without asking for it directly.
Lying, Teasing, and Joking. Also difficult, because they involve accessing sometimes conflicting
cultural/personal data structures, are interactions such as lying, teasing, and joking.
Normally joking and teasing are triggered with particular types of nonverbal behavior, but lying, or "half-
lying" (the downside of the human ability to use language) involves a complex series of calculations–for
both the liar and the "lie-ee". Oddly enough, it isn't much simpler if, say, character A habitually lies to
most other characters about certain subjects. In this case, character A must determine what character B is
likely to believe–which involves accessing quite a lot of personal history and careful monitoring of the
nonverbal behavior of character B. Character A might be totally naive and believe practically anything
anyone says, but in many situations, character B will sense something that elicits a "possible lie" filter.
The whole notion of lying wouldn't be as much of a problem if so much of human communication didn't
concern events which "could" be lies or imagination (internal states, dreams, fantasies, wishes).
For a virtual character to tell another character about a fantasy they've had about a third character,
"reality" needs to be put on hold in some way–otherwise we have to come up with more than one parallel
personal events system. We might want to do that, anyway–see below–but right now let's assume that it's
extremely cumbersome to do so.
 Virtual Drama | 45

The Magician’s Assistant Approach to Non-Truth Behaviors. One interesting solution to this problem
is to have automated virtual characters lie to us by sending coded private signals to each other which
travelers can't see/hear. In this "magician's assistant" approach, one character sends a signal which says
"I'm about to tell a total lie" or "I'm about to tell a dream". The other character then moves into some
other mode (say, dream reality mode) and doesn't have to duplicate valuable processing resources.
Using this technique, lying would consist of a process where on automated character sends the signal "I'm
about to lie" to itself as well as to the other characters. The character then tells the lie and the other virtual
characters use personality indicators and their personal history with the lying character to determine
whether they believe, are suspicious, or don't believe the lie.
Other Uses Of The Magician's Assistant Tactic. In situations where virtual automated characters are
only interacting with each other –– and where no ongoing non-virtual event is part of the scenario, this
pre-sending of information can greatly help to speed response time. In a sense they become actors in an
improvisation troupe. They huddle together briefly at the beginning of the scene, and use subtle cues and
hints to tell each other where to go in the scene. In our case they should be able to create the entire scene
in advance.
In fact I'd see using automated characters to create entire fixed-script drams –– since it doesn't really
matter how far in advance the script is created unless non-virtual world events need to be integrated into
the script.
Turning The Magician's Assistant Effect Into The "Charan" Language for Automated Characters.
Once we start in the direction of pre-sending character-to-character-only communications, it makes sense
to turn this sort of system into a language, which, due to my persistent lack of motivation in coming up
with a more interesting name, I'm going to call "Charan"– after the mythological guide to the underworld.
Here are some features I think would be useful in Charan:
- That the language become a universal one for automated characters, so that characters can move
from community to community if desired.
- Information in Charan would come from four main sources–identified at the beginning of the
communication:
- the story controller
- other automated characters
- the program translating traveler communication
- the physical space itself
- Information from the Story Controller would include emergency instructions, specific
motivations, special information about the traveler, required shifts in story location, etc.
- Information from other virtual characters would likely make up the bulk of communication:
- identification of the character "speaking"
- identification of language and dialect, etc., so that if a character doesn't understand that
language at all, they don't have to bother translating the verbal parts of the communication
- a reference # to access the personal history between the two characters
- statement of the "context" of communications (i.e. sarcasm, disbelief, anger, etc.)
- description of the non-verbals of the character
- movement (I'm going to move to ....)
- gesture
 Virtual Drama | 46

- facial expression
- intensity of the communication
In situations where automated characters are creating entire scenes at one time–usually where there is
little or no interaction with travelers or where they are generating entire scenes/scenarios for fixed-script
drams, Charan could also be used to help the story controller and the various characters negotiate the
composition of the scene.
Since traveler communications have to be translated into some form both for display (in the form of the
actions of their character "doubles") and to allow them to communicate with virtual characters, it would
make sense to translate traveler communications directly into Charan, so that all traveler communications
would be made available for the story controller and all automated virtual characters without requiring
them to have individual translation capabilities.
It is also likely to be less complicated for virtual spaces themselves to store information about the
physical size, location, and movement of everything within them and to then pass that information as
needed to characters and travelers. (See the chapter on spaces and objects for more detail.) If all of the
characters have access to that information via Charan, they can filter "environmental" information
through their various perception and personality filters and react accordingly. For example, seeing a flock
of birds in the distance might only interest a single bird enthusiast character in a particular dram, but in a
fantasy dram might alert two hunter characters–who immediately recognize them as giant creatures of
prey.
The Charan language itself could be designed to have different, fluid levels of complexity based on the
capabilities of the characters. An instance of this would be if all of the characters in a scene are very much
alike verbally and nonverbally, so that a simplified proto-version of Charan could be used and then be
filtered through the characters' personal histories to produce responses.
Proto-Charan (how easy it is to start creating jargon, eh?) could also be used in drams where characters
don't respond to subtle nonverbal cues.
Importantly, programs that translate traveler communications between various human languages could
also use Charan as a first stage translation language.
 Virtual Drama | 47

Automated Characters And Travelers

From the previous discussion on automated character interactions with other characters, you might be
tempted to say "that sounds like an awful lot of work to just come up with some story characters." True,
but remember, the major advantage of automated virtual characters is that you can create an entire
community of them and can have them involved in stories 24 hours a day–for as long as you‘d like.
The other major advantage of automated characters is that you can use them in extended interactions with
travelers –– one of the major marketable features of Virtual Drama.
First of all, the automated character has to receive the traveler's communications –– both verbal and
nonverbal. This means that something has to be picking up the traveler's voice, facial expression, gesture
and movement, and translating that information into a form that both the story controller and the
automated characters can immediately "understand".
To make for a seamless, worry-free experience, the story program is also going to want to get as much
pertinent physical, psychological and sensory information about the traveler as it possibly can –– so that it
can be ready for possible emergencies (mostly handled by "angel" characters), and can, where possible,
adjust the entire experience to meet traveler needs and requirements.
For example, if a traveler has hearing loss in one ear, a deep-seated fear of heights and dogs with spots, an
advanced dram program should be able to make changes in the story environment to make sure those
situations don't occur.
Many dram programs are also going to need to call up a record of the traveler‘s involvement with this
particular story–especially if it's ongoing–and to pass on pertinent information for automated characters to
use as part of their "personal history".
For example, a traveler might have been playing the role of "JaneWilson" in a dram. The automated
characters will need to have some record of their interaction with this particular JaneWilson made
available so that there won't be disruption in the relationship. Most travelers will need a refresher as well,
and will want "story-so-far" sessions to get themselves re-involved.
The story controller and automated characters will also need to have information about any specific story-
related requirements stated by the traveler –– such as a particular "look" for a specific characters –– and
any known traveler "behaviors" that are likely to disrupt the flow of the scene.
Traveler to Character Translator – “Simchar”. In drams where travelers are playing characters that
are not exactly like them–say, a character from another time and culture–it will be very useful to use a
translation device that picks up the traveler‘s communication and transforms it into language/
expressions/ gestures that are appropriate for the character the traveler is playing. I call the process
―simchar‖. This is especially important in drams where multiple travelers are present, since even
accomplished professional actors aren't always adept at maintaining roles for long periods of times, and
characters which are "badly or inappropriately acted" can be very annoying to other travelers once the
novelty of working with another non-virtual actor wears off.
NOTE: There is a hidden benefit to using the ―simchar‖ approach. If a single program takes on the task of
translating traveler communications into "character-appropriate" communications, that‘s a task the story
program doesn‘t have to perform and travelers don‘t have to worry about. The ―simchar‖ translator could
also be used in conjunction with the charan language to provide a proto-language which provides shortcut
translation between verbal and non-verbal languages.
Generating Scenes Between Characters. Once a traveler's special requirements, history within the story,
 Virtual Drama | 48

and in-story-behaviors are made available, and once it is clear that the story controller will be able to
understand what the traveler is communicating, the story scene can be generated using any of a number of
techniques.
Automated characters can help with this process if they have fairly complex personalities which allow
them to pre-generate appropriate dialogue for their characters.
For example, if the story controller "decides" that the characters should go on a picnic (perhaps as a part
of an embedded promotion for picnic-ware), and also decides that some particular event should take place
that the traveler hasn't witnessed, the automated characters can get together on the Charan channel and
rapidly (nanoseconds) consider workable dialog and behavior options–all while the traveler is going
through the immersion process, or moving from scene to scene.
Once the scene begins, automated characters and the story controller can use the Charan channel(s) to
keep the story flow moving as planned, interacting with the traveler "in character".
In the picnic setting for example, the "natural" likes/dislikes of the characters ("ground too lumpy", "let's
go into the shade", "don't let the plates get on the ground", nice comments about the picnicware) can
guide chit-chat with underlying motivations and events "bubbling up" throughout the scene.
Traveler-Handling Situations. Automated characters will be particularly good at handling "problem"
situations that are likely to come up with travelers. In a fixed-script dram, interactions between characters
and travelers are likely to be fairly limited, and those which are allowed will be carefully controlled. A
traveler who continually makes intrusive comments during a dram would be met with pre-set responses.
In more complex automated character environments, however, intrusive behavior situations could be
handled in a number of ways:
- The story controller could "ask" the characters to ignore the behavior for a certain period of time.
- The "guide" character (who is the traveler's personal "translator" for story elements/personalities,
etc) could "handle" the traveler by reminding the traveler (on the private traveler/guide "channel")
that the behavior isn't appropriate for the story.
- The automated characters and the story controller might employ a specific coordinated strategy
that has worked with this traveler in the past, and may allow the story flow to continue.
- In drams where there is only one traveler in the dram, the guide character can play "parent" and
more-or-less threaten to end the story.
Educational Uses of Automated Characters. You can see from the preceding example how drams with
automated characters can be used in socialization/ therapeutic situations without being obvious about it. If
the automated characters have fully developed personalities and like/dislike systems, sophisticated
intervention techniques and strategies can be simulated and tested in drams before they are tried on "non-
virtuals".
Another traveler/story situation which has ramifications for uses of drams in educational settings is when
a traveler has trouble understanding what is happening in the story. There might be a number of causes
for this, including:
- The various translators aren't working properly.
- The situation itself is too complex for the traveler.
- The traveler doesn't remember / hasn't been properly briefed on the "story-so-far".
- The traveler doesn‘t pick up nonverbal communication effectively (perhaps for sensory reasons
not adequately compensated for by the equipment or the story program).
- The vocabulary of the translators is too difficult.
 Virtual Drama | 49

- The traveler has various perceptual difficulties.

The story controller and automated characters should be able to pick up difficulties of these sorts pretty
rapidly if the devices which translate traveler's communication aren't part of the problem, and can ask the
traveler what's happening. "Am I being clear, dear?" "You look a bit woozy Henri. Are you getting
enough air at this altitude?" The guide character can follow up on some private guide/traveler channel if
necessary, and, where possible, the entire story experience can be revised "on the fly" by our expert
improvisers–the automated characters.
In situations where the problem is primarily vocabulary oriented, many, many diagnostic techniques have
been developed to do assessment in various languages, and standard vocabularies are available for many
different developmental and educational levels in most languages.
Dangerous Behavior. An important reason for having the traveler's dram assistant pass along current
biological and psychological information to the story controller is that, especially in action drams where
the traveler may be strapped into an apparatus or held suspended in a "force field" of some sort, injury (or
life) - threatening situations can occur. Assuming that biomonitoring devices have been installed (and
can't be disabled!), the angel character can step in and warn the traveler, can end the dram, and/or can
send for emergency medical help.
In situations where biomonitoring isn't 100% or where psychological monitoring (phobias, etc) isn't
sophisticated, automated characters can be "trained" to pick up the signs of physical or emotional distress
much earlier than dedicated failsafe systems, and can both attempt to modify the traveler‘s behavior and
to notify the story controller /angel/vid-assistant that something is going wrong and to be ready for
emergency conditions.

Learning In Automated Characters

If what we mean by "learning" is acquiring new information, then automated characters simply have to
add it to their life databases for future access–after filtering it through personality criteria to see if they
would actually remember it, or if they would "skew" the memory in some way.
Learning new skills, changing life rules, or exhibiting new behavioral strategies are much more complex
processes, since these activities presume that the entire character rule system itself has been designed to
be modified "on the fly" –– learning.
I'm assigning this sort of learning to independent characters (see below), since they need to be able to
learn to be able to be "independent".
However, since dram developers will want to make changes that affect a number of characters (say,
learning how to walk or swim or tie a knot), it would make sense to set up methods for adding new skills,
life rules, and so forth to an automated character's repertoire.
These added/changed behaviors can be made in stages so that the appearance of true learning is
maintained.
For example, let's say that the child character Shmoon is in a dram which takes place in a pre-industrial
tropical island community.
Shmoon's major activities are:
- helping the community with the cooking
- weaving baskets out of bark
- playing with other children --picking up sea shells
- learning the exploits of her family and ancestors
 Virtual Drama | 50

Since all of these activities have significant learning components, travelers would expect to see Shmoon
learning something over time–or they would wonder ―Why not?‖.
During the teaching process itself, the character only has to repeat new information or behaviors –– such
as copying the way her mother prepares an herb or copying the hand gestures her father makes for a
particular weave pattern.
Later on –– say, during the evening sleep period –– the story controller can decide, based on the character
Shmoon's personality and life rules, whether she should have "learned" something that day, and if so, how
much of the new behavior she should have learned. Shmoon's life rules might say that she learns very
slowly, so the story controller might wait for a substantial period of time before adding the behavior. Or,
if Shmoon is a "quick study", the controller might add a new piece of the behavior each day.
From the traveler's point of view, Shmoon appears to be "learning" the new activity.
This "modular learning" approach assumes that the dram program has access to information about a large
number of possible behaviors –– all broken down into "skill sets". Fortunately such skills sets are already
available for a large number of common human behaviors, activities, and professions.

Modularizing Automated Characters

One way to enhance the usefulness of automated characters to make sure that their component "systems"
are fully modular.
For example, let's say that an automated character consists of these systems:
- core personality
- appearance
- life rules
- life database (personal history; likes/dislikes)
- language translators and filters (e.g. the simchar and charan languages)
If each of these systems can function independent of the others, a developer could simply swap in a new
appearance, life database and language translator to provide a character who has the same "core
personality" and "core value system" as the original, but who has entirely different life experiences,
language, and so forth.
Each of the systems I listed could also consist of replaceable modules (e.g. food preferences could be a
sub-module of like/dislike and could be changed without having to make major changes to other aspects
of the character's life database.)
By modularizing automated characters, dram developers can extensively customize dram experiences to
suit traveler requests or constantly changing storylines.
 Virtual Drama | 51

Controlling Automated Characters

A few control techniques were already introduced in the current chapter. Modularization of systems
certainly would facilitate large changes –– such as replacing entire life databases –– but what about
making smaller changes where we want to adjust behaviors to suit story (and traveler) demands?
To answer that question, let‘s pose two other questions: Who is doing the controlling? Which controls are
overt and which covert?
Who Is Doing the Controlling? Since automated characters aren't, by my definition, independent enough
to carry a story forward by themselves, they have to be explicitly controlled. Since they are automated,
and have their own personalities, personal histories and rule systems, it would probably be more
appropriate to say that they need to be "directed".
In fact, I tend to think of automated characters as being like improvisational actors who can play many
different roles, who communicate "among themselves" while preparing/executing scenes, and who have
links to outside "directors" who can influence their activities in various ways, but try to not "get in the
way".
Live Directors. Certain high profile drams could use live directors to help characters make choices (as in
a famous series of experiments by a team headed by virtual storytelling pioneer Brenda Laurel) or to
interpret traveler behavior that the various translation programs find "puzzling".
For example, let's say that early on in the days of automated character drams, dram developers and travel
agencies get together to provide what amounts to story-based tours of inaccessible locations–such as the
planet Mars. The general story parameters are set in advance, but the travelers (through their dram
assistants) have specified the appearance and personalities of the characters. "No one too crude or
boorish, please." ―Someone just like me –– but popular.‖
When the experience begins, each traveler is assigned an automated character "guide", but one or more
live directors monitor the experience, perhaps by taking the point of view of individual travelers from
micro camera plants. The live director(s) observe when travelers are bored (or terrified) and make subtle
(usually pre-arranged) suggestions to characters over the private controller-character channels.
Live directors can also act as salespeople/promoters for follow-up experiences by using automated
tracking systems to pick out which parts of the dram travelers clearly enjoyed. The live
director/salesperson then cobbles together a follow-up experience that is suggested to individual travelers
at the end of the current experience.
Another situation where I could see live directors being used is in large scale experiences where the live
director acts as a sort of "second unit director"–– handling situations that automated story controllers find
"difficult"–– including emergency situations in action-adventure drams and general traveler misbehavior.
It could well be that for many years live directors, operating from remote locations, could be less
expensive to use for specialized dram story experiences than computer story controllers. They could also
be invaluable for research in handling traveler/character relationships and the vagaries of story flow.
Story Controllers. Once story control programs can be modeled and implemented, control will be
handed over to automated story controllers–sophisticated expert systems which monitor the activities of
travelers and automated characters, make "suggestions to characters"; and initiate many of the controls
discussed below.
Story controllers are actually automated characters themselves, and I would expect a community-sized
dram to have a number of specialized story controllers with a few "senior" controller programs which
 Virtual Drama | 52

handle very difficult situations and/or ask for non-virtual help.

Functions that story controllers might perform include:
- maintaining direct communication with the non-virtual world, so that there is a constant, active
channel to both equipment and human resources
- setting story guidelines on a daily basis
- scheduling automated character appearances
- monitoring traveler to character communication
- responding to traveler in-dram requests for changes
- acting as sales or marketing characters
Overt Controls In Automated Characters. No matter how sophisticated the automated character, there
will be times when the story controller/director will want to say "do this" to a character. Some types of
automated characters will salute and do exactly what they‘re told; others will check with their
personalities and come to some agreement with the story controller. (All conducted in nanoseconds, of
course.)
Situations where overt controllers would be useful include:
- giving characters specific motivations for a scene
- changing character appearance/personality/communication by traveler request –– especially
during the story itself
- shaping the story flow in directions likely to be more interesting/rewarding to the traveler. For
example, a sophisticated dram program may be actively monitoring traveler likes/dislikes–as
biomeasured–and may be able to alter the story experience "on the fly".
- handling emerging situations where travelers are at biological/ psychological risk. For example,
traveler I. M. Macho is forcing himself to stay in the mountain climbing sequence even though he
has been seeing little pink rabbits dancing on his pitons for the last fifteen minutes.
Covert Controls Over Automated Characters. The more sophisticated automated character
communications become, the less likely that dram developers will want to have story controllers make
overt interventions in the story process, for the simple reason that such interventions may represent
"voices that tell me what to do" from the characters‘ point of view. In automated characters with elaborate
personality structures, this sort of hallucination could affect the way they interact with travelers –– since
―those damned voices‖ could become a central factor in their existence.
For this reason, developers are likely to introduce elements which covertly alter a character's behavior in a
certain direction. We can think of these elements as "manipulation" or "propaganda" or perhaps
"subliminal advertising".
Some possible covert controls: Implanted Personality Controls, Stealth Characters, and Environmental
Controls.
Implanted Personality Controls. You can think of these controls as post-hypnotic suggestions,
where, when a particular sequence of words, images, or events takes place, the character will feel
impelled to do something for reasons that fit the character's personality structure and value
system, but aren't likely to be acted-out at the present point in the story.
For example, if the story controller knows that a relationship change is needed in a particular
community dram, a character could become so involved in doing something that she entirely
misses a planned rendezvous with her lover. Of course, it will be important for dram developers
to have some idea about what is going to happen in this sort of situation, but since the controller
 Virtual Drama | 53

has access to detailed information about character personalities, life rules and personal histories,
such predictions should be possible.
Another important form of implanted control would have automated characters help travelers who
are in real difficulty–especially where, for some reason, angel characters have become disabled.
Certain drams are also likely to incorporate Isaac Asimov's Robot Laws which would permit
characters to "do no harm" to non-virtual characters.
Stealth Characters. In drams with many characters and constantly developing story flows, minor
characters can be introduced whose function is to "point the story in a particular direction, or just
to "shake things up". This device has been used by authors for centuries (think of the friar-
messenger in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) and is a TV mainstay.
For example, everything is going along smoothly in the FrostyFalls virtual neighborhood until the
Webschleps move in. They contradict community standards, morals, and values (pick one) and
have the entire community "activated" so that the town busybodies are practically exhausted from
gossiping.
Stealth characters can also be used in a much "sneakier" way, by having them perform some
minor action (say, having their car break down at an intersection) or having a conversation that is
overheard by a "major" character.
Major and Minor Environmental Controls. As much as we sometimes hate to admit it, we are affected
by external and internal biophysical events such as weather, lack of sleep or nutrition, or what ads refer to
as "irregularity". It would make sense to create automated characters who are sensitive to the same things
we are, and therein lies an extremely effective mechanism for covert character control.
Let's say that the characters of PetersmouthPlaza have been suffering through a heat wave. Tempers flare;
parents become exhausted; energy bills mount. All in all, this is an ideal situation for conflict-based story
flow. What if relief arrives in the form of cool, dry weather? There is a collective sigh; a record number of
babies are conceived; children play outdoors again. Crime increases.
Or, in the micro environment of a character's stomach, the bean burritos eaten with great joy at lunch (and
having given little problem in the past) produce aches and pains which send the character home from
work just in time to catch her spouse ... eating the last of the chocolates :).
The elegant aspect of environmental covert controls is that characters-as-humans don't expect to have
much control over these aspects of their lives. Of course, when these techniques are overused it becomes
tedious: a disaster or heart-wrenching revelation every twenty minutes.
So, for example, it might be disruptive to tell a character to "go take a nap in the storeroom", but making
"reasonable" adjustments to the character's environment (say, only cheese sandwiches are left in the
cafeteria and cheese makes her really sleepy) would make perfect sense.
 Virtual Drama | 54

Do-It-Yourself Characters

In most storytelling forms the author/director controls characters, events and narrative. Even in audience-
interactive improvisation, the audience suggests characters and situations which are then created by the
actors–who have usually extensively rehearsed potential suggestions.
Unfortunately, our fast-paced, workaholic, post-industrial cultures don't allow much time for the
embellished family story, much less the telling of "The time that Aunt Glenda swallowed the little tree by
mistake".
That a lot of people want to create stories is clear from the vast number of stories, novels, films, TV and
film scripts submitted to publishers/producers each year. Of course this may have more to do with people
wanting to become famous and rich than with a genuine love of storytelling, but I suspect that more
people have tried their hand at formally creating characters, plots, and endings in the last fifty years than
knew how to read at the turn of the 19th Century.
Virtual Drama may offer these frustrated author/directors the opportunity to create their own stories, or at
least to create characters who are part of stories.
How? The answer lies with automated characters.
As automated characters become more sophisticated, it will be possible for travelers to choose, build, or
design their own characters. The key here is to keep the various elements of automated character
functioning modular, so that individual sets of traits or characteristics can be modified rapidly. It will also
be quite helpful for there to be standards of dram development which open the door for characters to be
used in many different dram setting and communities–an "open character" standard.
I believe there is room for many different do-it-yourself character approaches, from "pick a character
from column A and a personality from column B", to design of complex character personalities.
By giving travelers the ability to choose or create their own characters, a large number of additional dram
approaches become possible–such as improvisational communities where travelers "let their characters
go" to see what happens. In essence, travelers then create their own dramas.
The do-it-yourself approach may also help to absorb part of the cost of dram development by selling
travelers virtual products and services to go with their characters. "Would you like a new kilt for
MacTavish, sir? Or a new apartment overlooking the Loch?"
Choosing Characters. One relatively straightforward way to give travelers the illusion of choice would
be to provide them with a gallery of characters to choose from, placed in an immersive setting where
travelers can converse with them and readily observe them interacting with each other. With this sort of
process, allowing the traveler to make appearance modification will be useful, since you want to avoid the
peculiar situation of having thousands of Brad62's walking around in the same story world environment.
There are any number of ways to make this approach "sexier" –– from offering characters based on well-
known living or fictional persons, to having your own life sampled and explored by a professional design
team. "The perfect birthday present. A new you." :)
Personality Traits. Another "choice" technique that appears to give the traveler more options is the trait
list approach –– where a traveler chooses several key character traits. For example, "Sweet, late teens,
confused by life but hopeful; in love with music". This approach is best handled, I think, by having the
dram assistant or a story guide ask the traveler a series of questions to clarify what they "really‖ want.
Once the choice has been made, the character can be observed in an appropriate immersive setting.
 Virtual Drama | 55

Building Characters. Once the novelty of choosing automated characters wears off, some travelers who
have no intention of becoming "people-builders" are likely to want to have more control over the
appearance and personality of "their" automated characters via what you might call appearance kits and/or
personality kits.
Appearance Kits. One of the longest-selling categories of children's toys is the "swappable-face-
parts" doll (like Mr. Potato Head) where you can change facial features by moving pre-
proportioned face parts. If you extend the choices to body parts, make it all 3D and moving, you
get a "BodKit". The most effective way to do this will be to have the traveler go into an
immersive environment and walk on over to a ―BodShop‖ where s/he can physically swap
character features–using voice requests for special items. "Make the nose a little more like
Doglyn Rumolsh and the chin just like my first girl friend."
Personality Kits. Those travelers with a bent toward psychology (or for meddling in other
people's affairs) are likely to be drawn to programs that will allow them to make the kinds of
character choices I present as character independence stages 4-8 (in independent characters,
below). The simplest way to do this would be to allow travelers to choose general characteristics
("melancholy, but not depressed; bright but not rebellious") and then have a bit of fun having
them run through lists of like and dislikes and specific personality attributes. In this sort of
personality kit, the builder should be able to spend many happy hours "trying out" personalities–
with more sophisticated or subtle traits offered as add-on modules.
Of course, it would be important to have communities where these self-built characters can live,
and, as usual, I hope that character communities in general will be designed so that characters can
be moved from community to community with a minimum of modification or "translation".
Do-It-Yourself Character Design. There always seem to be a number of people who have "serious
hobbies" to which they devote a large amount of time, energy, and money. And then there are those who
will want to design characters professionally, but don't have access to the tools necessary to do so.
These folks can be catered to by providing character design products that are somewhat more automated
than the professional "character building" tools that will be used by dram developers, but offer much of
the same modularity, functionality, and testability.
The character designer community is an important one for dram developers to support because they
represent early-adopters of new character technologies, and will provide new generations of professional
character designers.
Dram character developers will have to come up with systematic methods of choosing the bodies,
vocabularies, personalities, and belief systems of the large number of independent characters that are
likely to be required once Virtual Drama starts to draw in more and more travelers. Why not extend these
methods and offer the traveler relatively painless ways of "customizing" their own characters.
The Virtual Character Mall. I see virtual character creation following the "shopping excursion at the
virtual character mall" approach. First, your dram assistant helps you to obtain the services of an
"authoring guide" virtual person. Then to the BodShop to pick out body parts, movement styles and a
unique, registered face–perhaps your Uncle Lemul's face. After that, to the clothing shops for the latest
virtual styles, or, if the character is fantasy or historical, for exotic and appropriate costumes.
Stop at the language lab to choose appropriate language, accent, period, and vocabulary–with the
understanding that you'll be able to tinker with it to your heart's content from home. Then to the sense
chamber and the personality shops–where you get to experience what it would be like to live with your
character. Finally, you decide on the character's core belief systems. ―How about a character who believes
that a rock is following him? And he's right!‖ Elaborately customized characters could take years to
create. Others could come off the shelf. The big question is: what will you be able to do with them?
Virtual communities which have ongoing scenarios will certainly want to have standards for characters.
 Virtual Drama | 56

For one thing, characters must mesh with the intent of the community (no axe murderers in PeaceWorld,
please). For another, the sophistication–in design, not personality–of a character should be equivalent.
Above all, characters must be unique. (There may well be a reason to create "BatmanWorld" where all the
characters look like cartoon character Batman, but dramatically it sounds a bit "iffy".)
Private or limited-use worlds are another story, and are likely to be the first big hit of Virtual Drama. If
you and two friends want to clone the personalities of famous people and have them do peculiar things. If
you can afford it, and have a good lawyer –– go right ahead. You could sample different aspects of your
own personality, turn each aspect into a character and have them live with each other (very Rogerian), or
somehow create doubles of your entire family to find out why they can't stay in the same room for five
minutes without somebody starting to yell.
And, of course, the most important and most practical character you would create would be your double–
the character which represents you in the virtual world. Who said you can't have nine lives?
 Virtual Drama | 57

Independent Characters

Introduction

Independent characters are automated virtual characters who have systems/ modules/ functions that are
not directly under the control of a central program or story controller. I call characters who operate
(almost) independent of all story controls "virtual people".
The usefulness of virtual people is pretty clear: they can be developed and sent out into the story
community "on their own". They are able to interact with other characters and with travelers in much the
same way non-virtual people would. And, if necessary, they can be given a bit of training and be
transported into different story worlds.
Those familiar with Star Trek‘s holodeck will be expecting immersive Virtual Drama to be made up of
virtual people, since that's the vision they've been treated to in the TV series. In that series the starship
crew members tend to talk about reprogramming virtual characters to do various things, but in screen time
it seems to be almost instantaneous–like operating a microwave.
When you have a large number of virtual story characters it is also more efficient to not have to control
them centrally, so that the major emphasis can be placed on enhancing the story flow experience for
travelers, by monitoring their responses and helping to make storyline adjustments.
Of course, developing virtual people requires advanced computing, storage and co-ordination
capabilities–not to mention the level of understanding it implies about human physical, psychological,
family and community processes!

How This Chapter Will Proceed

This chapter will begin by defining what I mean by ―character independence‖ by introducing eight
―stages‖ of independence. By way of a reward for having plowed through the stages, I then suggest a
series of tests (Wells-Wyndham) for developers who actually manage to create fully independent
characters and communities.
Then we move to the main work of the chapter: developing independent characters. The categories here
are similar to the chapter on automated characters: sampling approaches, social systems simulations,
incubation techniques, followed by a discussion of specialized communities of independent characters
and the all-important issue of control.
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The Eight Stages Of Character Independence

It makes sense to assume that virtual character "independence" will be phased in, with certain
functions/systems being ―freed‖ at different times.
Here's an overview of my guesstimate of that phase-in process, which I've come to call –– somewhat
grandly, I'm afraid –– "The 8 Stages of Character Independence". Each stage represents a development in
which certain character functions no longer have to be centrally controlled. You'll notice that the later
stages tend to parallel human development.

Stage 1: Appearance and Movement

The very first aspect of virtual characters dram developers are likely to want to make "independent" is the
physical appearance of the character and its movement. This, for our purposes, includes both gross motor
movement and individual movement variations–but not gesture or facial expression, which are pretty
clearly tied to higher-order language processes.
Dimensionality. Stage 1 is crucial in providing characters with "dimensionality", which is perhaps the
essential element which helps travelers feel that characters are "real" (even if they are supposed to be
Guzas from the planet Wazoo). The major problem with representing dimensionality (that is, 3D vs 2D) is
that travelers aren't going to be nicely stationary the way they are as they watch film/TV. They'll be
walking/ hopping/ flying, using joysticks, treadmills, grasshopper-like apparatus–you name it. And in
some drams travelers will arrive together and go through the dram together, which means that both their
own doubles (representations of themselves as virtual characters) and the story characters have to be
properly represented (in 4D) as they move along through the story environment.
If dimensionality information is carried with the character as she/ he/ it moves along -- rules for
coloration, skin viscosity, joint bending, arm movement, head dip, etc.-- then the virtual eyesight of the
traveler is the only thing that has to be adjusted.
For example, let's say that travelers Aingeru and Atosa Zurine decide to travel into a dram where they
"ghost" the Court of Louis XIV by taking whatever vantage point they want, and listen to conversations in
archaic French or in their own language, Basque. Even when they are walking together, the Zurines are
likely to move through the scene at slightly different rates of speed and need to see those changes
reflected in their own virtual "doubles" and in the way characters appear as they pass them. But if the
entire scene has to be shifted in terms of display every time a character moves, representation of the scene
becomes very cumbersome indeed.
Body Filters. One intriguing solution is to set up the story world so that the virtual area immediately
around travelers (as represented in the virtual world) becomes a ―sense filter‖ – quite apart from any
physical immersion equipment they might be wearing. This body filter filters sensory information –
including, in this case, dimensionality information – around the entire body, acting almost as a second
skin. In this way travelers (and virtual characters) can carry their own sensory characteristics without
requiring that the entire environment adjust to their presence.
This approach has the advantage of being useful whether travelers are wearing data suits, glasses, etc. or
are walking through a projected environment which requires no specialized apparel. When travelers are
wearing equipment, body filters can act directly, by providing a localized, filtered view of the scene to the
equipment. When the traveler is moving through a projected environment, the area around the virtual
―body filter‖ can be targeted for adjusted display to compensate for traveler activity and specialized
sensory requirements.
Appearance and Movement Characteristics. It will also be useful for virtual characters to carry their
 Virtual Drama | 59

own appearance and movement characteristics with them. Otherwise, all of the details of their behavior
relative to the eye/ head movement of each of the travelers (and to each other) would have to be re-
computed, transmitted, displayed and updated constantly. This places severe demands on display devices
and computation, and pushes dram developers in the direction of either limiting the sophistication of story
elements, or limiting display by having only specific pre-fixed points of view for travelers.

Stage 2: Biophysical Abilities

Another group of behaviors that dram developers are likely to want to de-centralize as quickly as possible
are normal biophysical activities such as breathing, digestion/ elimination/ blinking / ovulation /
menstruation, etc., or custom-defined biophysical properties for non-human characters. Variations in
these activities are crucial for character believability since they are so commonplace that we don‘t
consciously notice them. Only when there is some abnormality (e.g., labored breathing) or lack of activity
(as in cartoons or zombies) do we get the ―something is wrong here‖ feeling.
Specific bio-rules can be defined for each character ―Roger yawns constantly after eating starchy food.
Elise farts (daintily) after eating chickpeas,‖ using existing samples of ―normal‖ activity and other
theoretical approaches such as biorhythm and nutritional analyses which are synched to the storyline. In
this way, developers won't have to worry about characters‘ body functions unless they play a major part
in the story.
Biophysical activities are regular enough so that formulas can be set up to allow enough variation so that
they become a subtle part of character individuation.

Stage 3: Sensing and Sense Memory

Fixed-script characters don't know what's going on in their world except for individual moments in the
script. If something strange has happened to the program and one of the characters is hopping up and
down on his head spouting gibberish, the other characters won't "notice"–they'll just carry on with the
script. (This is not unlike a couple of situations I've seen with non-virtual actors :) .)
Automated characters have to have a certain amount of sensory ability just to avoid running into other
characters, settings and objects.
Independent characters will need to have a full set of sensory abilities to be able to deal with
unpredictable changes in the environment, or changes made by other characters or travelers. For example,
if one character rings a doorbell, the other characters need to hear it even if they can't see what's
happening. If someone has just announced that the doorbell isn't working (and if this is true), then
characters must not hear it when someone tries to ring it.
Sensory abilities vary widely in the human population, and we should expect to introduce that sort of
variety into our virtual characters.
As with appearance and movement, the major problem in representing sensory abilities has to do with
determining the distance and "volume" of sensory stimuli. A character might have eyes that see well at
certain distances. A moving character "knows" that a virtual steeple is a certain distance away and can
then translate that into what is seen. "It's sort of blurry and grey, but I think it's a church steeple".
It might be useful to ask whether virtual people should know everything that is in their immediate sensory
environment –– that is, information provided by some central program which represents the space itself–
and should then filter that information through sensory abilities filters so that they can act on it, or
whether individual characters should actually have sensing programs that examine the virtual
environment (like body filters). The latter approach will allow them to "feel" more like we do, since we
can localize where our eyes are and know when one of our ears is clogged. It also makes for a much more
 Virtual Drama | 60

complex character. However, it also brings up the question of virtual person awareness of their own
systems as a whole, or character "consciousness".
One way or another, sensory abilities make good candidates for early independence because although
they will vary from character to character, they can be individualized and remain stable over long periods
of time.
Sense Memory. "Sense memory" is the ability to remember particular sensory events as filtered through
sensory acuity and short and long term memory.
If I write "The dinner special smelled like a pizza with lots of garlic, burnt my tongue, and kept sliding off
of our plates," you conjure up particular fantasy sensations which are more or less accurate–unless, for
example, you have never burnt your tongue on food, or have never tasted pizza.
It is absolutely essential that sense memory be filtered through memory ability and level of sensory acuity
because characters with total sensory recall just won't be considered human.
Sense memory is also affected by biophysical state, since a character with a "cold" may not be able to
smell the hot chocolate that everyone is talking about, and will have to rely on visual memories of hot
chocolate–which are not nearly as powerful.
Of course sense memory, when paired with emotion memory (in Phase 6) gives a character capabilities
which are distinctly human. Many of our great writer/ creators use characters' "emotionally loaded" sense
memories to allow us to identify with them much more immediately and fully. "What light through
yonder window breaks. It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." Or, in the film "Close Encounters of the Third
Kind" think of the emotional build-up the major characters display over the image of the mountain, so
that when they actually see it for the first time, we can almost share their joy and release.

Stage 4: Speech & Nonverbals

Although speech is the first ability we are likely to see in virtual characters, making speech and nonverbal
communication independent is much more difficult. In fact, programmed "robot" (text-only) characters
have been with us for a while in "MUDs", "MOOs", and AI-based autoresponse programs such as
―Eliza‖.
For one thing, characters will have to have personal vocabularies, dialects, word-emotion histories (where
particular phrases bring up images of past events), non-verbal systems, and so forth.
For another, they will have to understand other virtual characters and travelers–or understand what they
don't -- and shouldn't be able to -- understand. This, of course, requires extensive language processing
capability.
Even when traveler-translator filters are in operation –– either translating a traveler's utterances into
appropriate character dialect, or into an intermediary language specific to characters (―charan‖ or
―simchar‖) or translating their speech and nonverbals directly –– the interpretation of the communication
has to be filtered in various ways. For example, if Phil shouts "You Moron!" in a room full of characters
and travelers that includes Bob, Bob might need to evaluate whether:
- Phil's body position and gesture indicate that Bob is the intended receiver of the communication
- Phil's tone and posture says "just kidding" or "I'm going to come over and throttle you with my
bionic arm";
- Phil is actually talking to himself;
- The appropriate response for this culture. (For example, hostile/ playful communications might
require him to bow his head to the recipient.)
 Virtual Drama | 61

Since the number of language/dialect/vocabulary possibilities for any given character is enormous, it
makes a great deal of sense to have characters carry their own personal "subset" of language abilities with
them as soon as possible. This means having personal verbal and nonverbal vocabularies and a rule
system that states when it is appropriate for the character to make certain sorts of responses.
This turns out to be a bit less cumbersome than one might expect if the communication systems of a
number of virtual characters within the same culture and community are developed at the same time. By
first establishing in-culture communication content (verbals and nonverbals in common use) and rules
(when it is appropriate or inappropriate to use particular verbals and nonverbals), it becomes much easier
to introduce variations in individual characters through a history of interaction with other characters in the
virtual family and community. If all of the characters in a story world (including traveler doubles) have
the same community linguistic-nonverbal rule sets, individual characters might only need to carry their
differences from the rules –– their individuality.
From this point of view the most difficult character communication systems to make independent will be
for characters who have lived in a number of different cultures, such as world travelers or "big city"
characters. I call these sorts of characters ―nabokovs‖, since the number of possible cross-cultural
influences is enormous.
Communication Memory. In general, only those people with unusual auditory and/or visual memory
will recall interactions in detail. Even in situations where people appear to be repeating/ mimicking
conversations verbatim, quite a bit of editing/ filtering actually goes on. When families have severe
communication problems, sometimes taping their interactions and playing them back for discussion can
create ―aha‘s‖ as they observe the difference between memory and actual events.
You would think that the spottiness of character communication memory would make things easier, but it
actually makes the situation more complex, since separate rule / filter systems are needed to establish
what a character does remember and what they don't remember.
For example, we might say that Jennifer tends to remember everything that happens inside her home with
her children and elements of major projects at work, but has low visual memory for places other than her
neighborhood.
Part of the reason for the complexity of communication memory has to do with the fact that, beyond
general short-term and long term memory abilities themselves, actual memory is a function of repetition,
attention, and novelty.
Let‘s say that I move into a new town. I might immediately notice a building with a spectacular stained-
glass window and lovely garden. After I've lived in the town for a while, even though I might pass the
building every day, it becomes part of the "background" for me, and if someone mentions the church to
me in conversation, I might have to think for a moment before I can place it.
However, since we realize very early in life that people remember different kinds of things at different
times, we expect communication memory to be a "fuzzy" area–which can work to the dram developer's
advantage.
Let‘s say that we establish general memory abilities for a character (long term/ short-term recall plus
relative "strength" of verbal / visual / olfactory/etc. memory). We can have the character carry with her all
of the memory items not filtered out by general memory abilities, and then use personality traits and the
story situation to determine whether the character remembers conversations, non-verbal attitudes, and so
forth.
If, for example, Jennifer is having lunch with a college friend whom she sees every couple of months, the
conversation is likely to focus on what the two of them have been doing in the intervening time, and what
is happening in the lives of other college friends with whom they stay in contact.
If Jennifer's "core" memory includes everything she has seen, heard or felt since she began to exist (plus
 Virtual Drama | 62

pre-implanted memories), then her "functional" (locally held, fast-access, right-now) memory might
include only those items of her core memory which both have something to do with her friend, and meet
her "recall profile" (including, say, high recall for faces and very low recall for conversations). So... when
Jennifer is conversing with her college friend, she will tend to use visual memories ("Wasn't Phil the one
with the big red ears?")
At the point where dram developers want character communication abilities to become independent it will
make sense to start growing characters in communities (see below), since it's a lot more efficient for
characters to remember experiences they have actually had (even if those are induced at super speeds)
than to develop elaborate "memory implantation" strategies which perform essentially the same function.

Stage 5: Personality

So far in the character liberation process we have characters who carry appearance, movement, sensing,
and communication abilities with them. At that level of complexity, characters will still need to receive
explicit instructions or be ―motivated‖ using some sort of central story control system.
Let‘s say that character Rocco sees his longtime girlfriend, Eva, mixing almonds into a salad that she is
preparing for the two of them. She knows that he is very allergic to almonds. How does he respond:
emotionally, verbally, nonverbally? Normally, if you were an actor playing Rocco you would look first
for some explicit direction provided by the writer, such as ―Rocco gets angry‖. If that direction weren‘t
present, you would look for the relationship between the two characters and the context of the scene to
give you your answer. You would be using your understanding of the character‘s personality and
relationship structures to tell you what to do.
If you were to actually rehearse the scene, the way you would react to this moment might also be affected
by the way Eva is mixing the salad. Is she getting Rocco‘s attention first and carefully pouring the
almonds in one at a time? Is she furious about something Rocco has just done?
How will Rocco respond? Is he a violent person? Is he so enamoured of Eva that he will do anything he
can to avoid upsetting her? Is he a frightened person who will eat the salad anyway and quietly head for
the hospital?
The decision requires a detailed situational understanding of Rocco‘s personality and of the emotional
relationship between Rocco and Eva.
To be able to allow characters to possess their own personalities, theories of applied character personality
need to be developed. One way of doing this is to combine existing personality theories, study results,
polling, and live sampling into a complex series of ―rules‖ that can be tested directly using virtual
characters.
Probably the best way to do this testing will be to create extended families of experimental characters so
that basic social relationships can be examined. Any workable explanatory system must, at minimum, be
able to handle family, lover, co-worker, and acquaintance social systems.
One distinct advantage of allowing characters to carry their own personalities is that it reduces the need
for centralized control over a number of story elements.
Assuming that story control has a pretty fair understanding of the relationship between Rocco and Eva,
and of their individual personalities, it should only be necessary to put them in particular situations to get
desired results.
For example, if story control knows that Rocco has an extremely poor sense of direction (perhaps because
of some inner ear problem), and that his personality dictates that he needs to be in control most of the
time, putting him in a situation where he is lost in the middle of a large unfamiliar city is likely to produce
certain kinds of results.
 Virtual Drama | 63

Stage 5 development efforts will be especially interesting for psychologists and sociologists, since it gives
them the opportunity to directly test theories of personal and social behavior.
Personality Memory. Our inner life contains a whole complex of rules which govern what we
like/dislike and will/won‘t do in certain circumstances. Part of this complex has to do with our perception
of who-we-are and how-we-act, which is built up over time as we fine-tune our wants/desires and come to
understand our capabilities and limitations. The memory of who we are, especially in relation to other
people, or to societal norms, I call personality memory.
Let‘s say that the alarm clock goes off in the morning. We really might want to turn it off and go back to
sleep. One person might think ―I have to go to work. People are depending on me.‖. Another might think
―No need to get started on that project until this afternoon. Better if I‘m rested.‖ A third person might yell
and throw the clock across the room.
Each of these sets of thoughts is based not only on a memory of what has to be done, what time it is, and
whether the clock keeps accurate time, but also on an internal rule system which reminds us how we have
responded to similar situations in the past. The last time we have responded in a particular way might
have had disastrous consequences, and that becomes a part of the current process.
Personality memory becomes an important filtering device when it comes to choices of actions in various
situations. For example, John might like the taste of both peas and carrots, but when faced with that
choice in a restaurant, may associate carrots with a particular person. It is part of John‘s personality to
respond strongly to emotional triggers, and so he might (subtly) gag when he sees the word ―carrots‖ on
the menu.

Stage 6: Reasoning & Learning

It‘s one thing for a character like Rocco to react to a situation, and quite another for him to analyze what
he has done, to independently set up a weekly schedule of activities for himself, or to learn to not perform
a particular behavior.
Reasoning and learning have been of interest for quite some time in the fields of Artificial Intelligence
and Cognitive Science, since those activities allow researchers to simulate the sorts of problem solving
behavior that are useful in performing tasks common to business and industry.
From our point of view, it doesn‘t matter what system a particular character uses to reason or learn, as
long as he/ she has some process that produces consistent results. This offers the same sort of
experimental opportunities as deriving personality systems.
You‘ll notice that I‘ve placed Reasoning/Learning after Personality in the Eight Stages of Independence,
even though many people would think that personality behaviors are much more difficult to model.
However, we aren‘t interested in developing thinking/ learning machines, but truly human-like characters
whose logic and reasoning are all too influenced by personality, social factors, biophysical processes –
even the weather.
This means that for our purposes reasoning and learning almost become a function of personality rather
than independent processes.
For example, let‘s say that Rocco has to prepare dinner every weekend. Rocco doesn‘t like cooking,
partly because he has damaged senses of taste and smell, and partly because he associates it as being a
―non-masculine‖ activity. So... when Rocco follows the recipe that has been laid out for him, he
habitually (consciously or no) makes some sort of mistake. He also never seems to remember recipes
from one week to another. At least half the time, one of the dishes he prepares has to be thrown out, and
every once in a while the result is so disastrous that he and Eva have to go out to eat.
 Virtual Drama | 64

Eva doesn‘t like cooking either. She is simply too busy. But her personality says that she wants to master
every activity she pursues, so she spends many hours learning how to create wonderful dishes that will
take the least possible time. Cooking is also the one area where she can clearly exert control over Rocco.
Because Rocco and Eva‘s personality and motivational systems are so different, even if we were to have
them use the same reasoning/learning approaches, the results would seem as though they were using
entirely different systems.
Sense Modality and Reasoning. One aspect of Stage 6 that ties directly into earlier stages is the
tendency for people to learn using different dominant sense-modality combinations. Most of us in TV/
DVD/ book/ CD/ Radio cultures are auditory/visual in our learning process, but some folks are heavily
olfactory/tactile, or even kinesthetic (as in dancers).
If Eva is primarily visual/olfactory, she will structure learning around visual cues and smell, so that she
might be both attracted and repelled by having to learn a recipe involving a wildly-colored cheese which
has a pungent aroma.
Her visual learning style may make rote auditory learning (say, of statistics, song lyrics, etc.) difficult,
which will, in turn, affect her likes and dislikes and the kinds of things she will even attempt to learn.
As with personality systems, it will be helpful to experiment with extended families of characters who
display a normal range of reasoning/learning patterns within that virtual culture. Filter that through
specific verbal/ nonverbal dialects (which shape reasoning/ learning in many ways), and we get a
―sculpted‖ reasoning and learning system for that family/culture.
From the dram developer‘s point of view, providing independent characters with ―sculpted‖
reasoning/learning systems makes them more ―lifelike‖ and, at the same time, more predictable – which
has significant advantages when it comes to trying to control story flow.
Stage 6 holds great promise and danger for the whole character independence process, because characters
with personality, reasoning and the ability to learn come very close to resembling actual people – to the
extent that they could easily pass the Turing Test, if not the Wells-Wyndham Tests. (See below).

Stage 7: Imagination and Creativity

―Imagination‖, as I‘m using it here, means being able to think, fantasize, talk about, or reproduce in some
other way, situations and events which are previously unknown to the character, or which don‘t exist in
the same order or context in a character‘s memory or in the current sensory environment.
This somewhat labored definition aims at allowing characters to be able to lie, to make factual mistakes,
and to produce descriptions or representations of things/ events that don‘t, to the character‘s knowledge,
actually exist.
―Creativity‖ is the ability to write, paint, compose, do taxes, cut the lawn bushes in a way that isn‘t ―rote‖.
For example, a character might have the ability to paint landscapes built-in to her natural abilities profile.
A dependent character will crank out stock landscapes all day long, with some variations in tone, color,
etc. for variety. A character with independent creativity will be able to take that basic ability (shapes and
colors) and add personal statements coming out of experience, memory, observed conditions, or some
more abstract consideration–such as exploring the notion of edges in bushes.
One conceptual hurdle that developers will have to overcome is the notion that creativity and imagination
are somehow ―magical‖ and can‘t (or shouldn‘t) be reproduced outside of humans. In fact, many, many
creative behaviors can already be modeled or provided as expert systems. It is only creative process
which totally transcends the current culture and becomes both predictive and popular (often because it
reflects some new state of a particular culture) that is difficult to model.
 Virtual Drama | 65

At this point in the independence process, characters start to resemble ―talented‖ people and the threat to
those in a number of professions who will be directly involved in creating drams becomes apparent. Can
the creative output of independent characters eclipse that of ―reals‖? Will there be societal adjustments to
accommodate it, or will the creative efforts of the characters Picasso and Monet be outlawed? Will
conceptual artists use multiple independent artist characters to constantly extend boundaries?
Interesting times.

Stage 8: Decision Making (Virtual People)

Until virtual characters become so thoroughly human that it is difficult to tell the difference between them
and travelers, and until independent characters live in communities that we will be satisfied to just visit,
developers will want to control various aspects of character decision making.
The most obvious aspect of this control has to do with the flow of stories. Since our stories in the West
flow out of a model which emphasizes conflict and problem solving (with ―digestive‖ time limitations on
plot segments), the transition to more ―realistic‖, open ended stories is likely to be gradual.
In the meantime we will want to play god with our characters, placing subtle hints here, embedding
personality triggers there, so that we can more or less predict results.
In Stage 8, we remove all but emergency controls –– ―Please don‘t kill or injure the travelers if you can
help it‖ –– and characters live their lives based on their personalities and the nature of the society in
which they live. We may have had a large hand in creating that society – e.g. a 19th Century Russian farm
community – but beyond that, it will be ―hands off‖.
Allowing characters to make decisions requires that we‘ve done a thorough job in liberating them in the
other seven stages.
For example, if Eva is to decide that she wants to leave Rocco, she needs to be capable of laying out the
pros and cons of the situation and filtering them through the suggestions of her friends and family. Once
again, this doesn‘t mean that characters should be ―perfectly rational‖. Eva may have totally unrealistic
requirements for a mate and may have gone through a long succession of lovers without heeding any of
her friends‘ suggestions. But ... that‘s life!
In communities filled with Stage 8 independent virtual people, developers will need to keep ―hands off‖
once the community is initiated to minimize ―contamination‖.
A particular problem with Stage 8 is how to introduce travelers into stable communities of independent
characters. One possibility is to think of these communities as actual, living communities, and to use them
to take extensive samples that will be used to create automated characters or to clone the entire world
itself (over a set time period) for use with travelers.
For example, if we‘ve developed GrimmWorld, where the characters are fleshed out versions of
characters from the famous folk tales, we might want to have the community of independent characters
live at a much faster rate of speed than normal human communities. As a result, we will have a detailed
record of the events of this world which can be used (along with some automation and improvisation) to
develop the characters and situations for GrimmCity, which is a community where travelers can play
various subsidiary characters, create their own versions of Brothers Grimm characters, and so forth.
 Virtual Drama | 66

The Wells-Wyndham Tests

The Turing Test is a well-known standard for the ―humanness‖ of artificial intelligence programs that try
to simulate human conversation. The test requires that a panel of individuals communicate (text only)
both with the AI program and with a group of ―real people‖. If enough of the panel can‘t tell the
difference between the program and the ―non-virtuals‖, it passes the test.
Since Stage 8 independent characters are expected to look, talk, move, and act very much like living
people, I thought it would be useful to suggest performance tests directly aimed at independent characters
and communities. I‘m dubbing them the Wells-Wyndham Tests after two early science fiction authors
who wrote compelling, believable characters.
One reason why I hesitate suggesting the use of the Turing Test itself in evaluating virtual characters is
that there are a very limited number of actors who are good at portraying characters for any extended
period of time.
This means that you could have a testing situation which pits live actors who are playing themselves
(using virtual doubles) against virtual actors–in a contemporary story world. However, if you try to put
live actors and virtual actors in non-contemporary settings–over the time periods required in Virtual
Drama–it won‘t be difficult to tell which actors are ―live‖ because they‘ll be the ones who tend to drop in
and out of ―character‖!
One way around this problem is to use testing panels of psychologists, historians, literary critics, linguists
etc. who are ―expert‖ in particular time periods, genre, etc. Another, more expensive, approach is to create
virtual character doubles for living people and to test them against the genuine article in a virtual world.
―I‘m sorry, Frank. I could have sworn it was you.‖

Wells Tests for Individual Characters

Expert Panel Tests

For Contemporary Characters
Individual judges live in a contemporary virtual world with virtual people and the virtual doubles of live
actors for an extensive period of time. At the end of that time they evaluate which characters seemed the
most believable.
For Non-Contemporary Characters
A panel of judges familiar with the culture/language/time period in question live in the virtual world for
an extensive period of time and evaluate which virtual characters they estimate to be ―fully believable‖.
(Prepare for fireworks in situations where there are historical feuds brewing.)
Doubles Test
Virtual Person doubles are created for living people – using live sampling and other techniques. A panel
consisting of people who know/ don‘t know the individual are placed in identical virtual worlds with
either a virtual person double or with the living person (as represented by an appearance double) for some
extended period of time. The panel must decide which character was the most believable.

Wyndham Tests for Virtual Communities

John Wyndham (aka John [A Bunch of Middle Names] Harris) had the ability to make the lives,
 Virtual Drama | 67

aspirations, and environments of quite ordinary characters and their surroundings so convincing that he
could carry reader belief into the most preposterous sci-fi situations.
The Wyndham Tests for Virtual Worlds come in two categories: populated story worlds tests and tests for
communities of virtual people
Populated Story worlds Tests ask whether the physical representation of the world (including its
population) seems completely real. For this purpose, there would be three different types of story worlds:
- Re-creations of Currently Existing Spaces (such as modern Helsinki)
- Historical Re-creations (as in a 17th century Chinese town)
- Fictional or Fantasy Spaces (e.g. Three Little Pigs Island)
In each of these tests, a panel of experts is ―dropped‖ into the world for an extended period of time. They
evaluate the physical representation (reality) of the space, the traveler‘s ability to move through the world,
its sensory properties, and the realism of inhabitants (including those who might not be fully
independent.)
In Tests for Communities of Virtual People, the basic test assumption is that people may want to spend
a fair amount of time actually ―living‖ in the virtual community – especially if their work or education
will take place there.
Unfortunately, there‘s a catch. If you have a community of virtual people, when you introduce a non-
virtual person, you affect the nature of the community. If you add thousands of non-virtual people into the
same community, and allow them to pop in and out at will, the nature of the community changes
drastically and loses its original purpose. If you clone the entire community and allow different travelers
to interact with the virtual people in the community, each cloned world will take a different direction.
This means that for the Wyndham Test there probably should be two testing situations: one for the
original world and one for an interactive version of that world.
In the Wyndham Test for original worlds, observers pop in and out of the world, seeing just how ―real‖
the world seems. If it is a non-contemporary world, the judges include experts in that particular culture.
The verdict: believable or not believable.
To test the interactive version of the world, judges must live in the world for an extended period of time,
evaluating the surroundings and the people. I imagine them coming up with three verdicts:
- Fully Believable: Genuine enough to convince someone on an extended visit.
- Ready to Live in: Assuming sufficient life support for travelers (i.e. equipment, food, sanitary
facilities, etc.), someone could actually live in the world for an indefinite period of time.
- I want to live there. The world isn‘t only ready to live in – it‘s so compelling that it would be
pleasant to think of living there for a long period of time.
In a way, I see the Wells and Wyndham Tests providing benchmarks for 1) the success that our
technologies have had in representing human physical, psychological, and social activity; and 2) the
extent to which we can utilize science, the arts, and the humanities in coordinated undertakings.

Developing Independent Characters

Rather than trying to discuss the myriad developmental processes that could be involved in the various
levels of character independence, I feel it would be more productive to take a look at the ultimate goal –
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fully independent virtual characters: virtual people.

First of all, I don‘t think it makes a lot of sense to consider developing individual virtual people, but only
families and communities. The reason for this is simple. We have always been interested in having our
stories–whether used for entertainment, education, or social control–talk about, and sometimes explain,
our behavior toward each other. Human behavior is inexplicable without examining the interdependent
relationships involved with mating, family, and community. To be truly independent, virtual characters
must constantly live in communities. To be truly independent, virtual characters must develop ―natural‖
relationships over time, as we do, with all of the quirks of memory, with all of the pain and pleasure of
reinforced experience.
What this implies is that all through the process of pushing automated characters to become more and
more independent, we should be preparing them to live as we do – in couples, in families, and in extended
communities. There are a number of ways of accomplishing this. I‘ve divided them into: 1) Sampling
Approaches; 2) Psych/ Soc Systems Simulations; 3) Incubation Techniques. Finally, I‘ll discuss some
specialized communities of independent characters.

Sampling Approaches

Live Sampling. I‘m assuming that entire ―real‖ families (even entire small communities) can be paid
enough to have their lives digitally sampled for long periods of time. When such samples are combined
with population statistics, polls, and surveys of many kinds, representative virtual communities can be
established for many cultures.
If families or communities allow themselves to be sampled for a long period of time, they can be
observed directly, and/ or their appearance, communication, personalities, and interpersonal interaction
can be ―abstracted‖ to provide the basis for automated characters who can interact with dram travelers.
In fact, as I‘ve been preparing these Notes for publication (2002), several ―reality‖ TV programs have
appeared. Although the programs have been developed because of their low cost and voyeuristic appeal to
audiences, they also would allow dram developers to compile an enormous amount of digital life
sampling information that can be used to create virtual characters.
Story/Myth Mining. Another sampling approach is to ―crunch‖ the character data from all available
stories and from historical information about a particular group/culture. The data can then be synthesized
into detailed character ―types‖ for that culture. In many respects this is the approach used by U.S. TV
producers, at least in the sense that they try to match characters to actually existing societal ―types‖ who
will be found interesting by their target advertising audiences. This approach might also be useful in
dealing with non-contemporary cultures which have relatively high rates of literacy.
For example, if we were to combine all of the existing diaries from the U.S. Civil War and all ―available‖
anecdotal and fictional stories based on the period, and were to synthesize them into character types, we
wouldn‘t have ―flesh and blood‖ characters (diaries are written, after all, and the language is often quite
formal and guarded), but we would get enough clues to be able to construct vocabularies, appearances,
and general personality traits for the U.S. area of ―CivilWarWorld‖.
Another example would be a work up for ―SmallTownJapan‖ where local news articles from a large
number of small town newspapers are ―crunched‖ along with available diaries, oral histories, technical
descriptions and other anecdotal material to provide parameters for creating characters and situations for
the ―typical‖ small Japanese town.
It might be that the dram developer doesn‘t want to deal with real people at all, but to work within the
universe of fictional characters that audiences have already found intriguing. They could ―mine‖ details of
the most interesting characters in various media for the past few years and come up with general
guidelines for character development. Or, they might want to mine characters from a particular period –
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say the 19th Century Russian novel

Community Sample Mapping. Many existing communities are likely to be of interest to dram
developers, but live community sampling will be out of the question –– except from Reality TV sorts of
situations –– and the sort of information necessary for Story Mining just won‘t be available. Or, the
community itself won‘t live in a single geographical location, as in the situation where the developer
wants to create a world devoted to twins. In these cases, judicious sampling within the community –
through polls, living diaries, and limited live sampling can help to build an overview of the life of the
community, which can then be automated.
For example, for TwinsWorld, the dram developer won‘t have an existing co-located community of twins
to sample, and will need to pick up as much living data as possible from twins all over the world. I stress
―living‖ data because a population like twins has a fairly large body of psychological/ sociological
research devoted to it – but most of that data is only useful in constructing personality structure
simulations.
Another important use of community sampling is to provide criteria for ―what characters in this
community aren‘t‖ – meaning that although most natural communities have a fair amount of variation in
personal characteristics, certain ones will be quite rare, and can be ruled out, or deliberately introduced
for effect.

Social Systems Simulations

In the section on automated characters I spent a bit of time talking about the value of putting
combinations of theories of personality/ individual behavior to the test by creating characters, families,
and small communities based upon these theories and then observing the results.
Assuming that some of the basic groundwork has already been done in the automated character phases of
the development of a particular story world, independent characters can be used to simulate much more
dynamic, large scale, theories of social activity.
To be able to do this effectively, it is important that the characters be fully independent, clearly
individual, and already living in viable families and small communities of some sort. Otherwise, the
results of larger scale simulations – which depend on the operation of enormous numbers of factors – will
always be in question.
Assuming this, here are examples of some relatively straightforward types of societal simulations:
Toy Chest Simulations. Researchers take existing, small, independent character communities (such as
families) and put them together under rule systems which represent theories about how larger
communities operate. For example, if we‘ve created several small communities of independent characters
using some sort of speed incubation, and then introduce a drought which forces these disparate
communities to live together, we might derive some insights on immigration and migration.
Any simulation where you ―force-fit‖ individuals or groups is a Toy Chest Simulation. An example many
city-dwellers will appreciate is the situation where you introduce into a community a family whose values
totally conflict with the existing larger community. There is potential for mutual growth or for festering
hostility. In certain situations –– say where the family introduces drugs and weapons –– the entire larger
community may be affected in striking ways.
Big Wave Little Wave Simulations. Closer perhaps to laboratory research methods are simulations in
which a single factor is changed in an existing community. For example, the weather might prevent an
annual community celebration from taking place. Or, the average height/weight of children born into the
community might increase/decrease slightly in a single generation. I‘m sure you can think of lots of
possible experiments.
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Of course, the larger the population of independent characters, the more important it will be that they be
fully independent and fully realistic. Since these sorts of simulations could potentially be used to examine
actual social policy (say, disaster preparedness), it will be crucial to determine which modeled societies
are ―story-based‖ and which are attempts to model actual human societies.

Incubation Techniques

One of the movie cliches about human cloning is that fully developed adult clones (with personalities
identical to the original) can be produced overnight. For the moment at least, we can do no such thing.
Cloned organisms have to mature in the usual way – and that takes time.
If we‘re talking about developing independent characters by having them ―live a normal life‖, we‘re in
essentially the same situation. It‘s simply going to take too long to do it the usual way.
Fortunately, these are computer generated characters, so we can accelerate the speed at which the entire
process takes place – assuming that our models of human maturation and social development are close
enough to the real thing. By altering the notion of time for the entire story world in which the characters
are grown, we can have weeks/years pass in minutes. Since we are likely to be cloning these worlds for
interactive use with travelers anyway (and no travelers will be visiting them directly), our main problems
will be generating the first set of independent characters and making sure we‘ve gotten the world ―right‖
before, during, and after the time acceleration process.
Adam and Eve. Creating the first independent characters in a story world is something of a chicken and
egg problem. We can‘t just have the characters develop on their own, Garden-of-Eden-like. They have to
grow in some sort of culture, otherwise they won‘t be particularly useful as characters. But where will the
adult population originate?
Here‘s one possible incubation process:
Cultural or Transcultural. First of all, we need to decide whether the independent characters are going
to be transcultural, or embedded in a particular language and culture. By ―transcultural‖ I mean that the
characters will develop with language, non-verbals, personality and social skills that will allow them to be
placed in a number of pre-specified cultures or story worlds. In a way, you can think of these characters
as being raised in a country which has a very varied topography and climate and a large tourist
population.
Transcultural characters will be particularly useful in situations where you will be able to take characters
from one story world and migrate them to another world–with a certain amount of re-training. However, I
suspect that most independent characters will be grown for one specific culture. One process for doing
this follows:
Preparing the World. Incubated characters will need a physical world to grow into, and for
larger populations of characters this will take some considerable preparation. Let‘s not forget
plants, animals, and other living beings, geological processes, weather, and so forth. Preparing
characters without a specific environment pretty much guarantees that they will seem
―featureless‖, distant, even alien.
Seeding the World. When the world is ready to be seeded with characters, a population of
automated, ―almost‖ independent characters is installed, complete with embedded histories of
their prior life in that place. We‘ll assume that a number of characters are ready to give birth (or
bud, or whatever it is that they do).
Typing Characters. As the newly hatched independent characters are preparing to come into the
world, they are provided with ―tendencies‖ that assure them a certain amount of independence
from the environment (see Control Issues, below). Of course they should resemble their genetic
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―family‖ in certain ways, or there‘ll be talk :) .

Development. The automated characters are primarily responsible, one way and another, for the
growth of the new independent characters. The early part of this process is a perfect time for
developers to make adjustments in character attributes – by passing instructions through the
automated characters.
Timestreaking. Once the world and its characters appear to be stabilized, developers can make
time move faster. I like the term ―timestreaking‖ because time lapse images of the sky show the
sun streaking across like an atomic particle, and the speed of time becomes almost visible. Will
characters notice that time has changed (assuming that their physiological and sensory processes
have also been adjusted)? That would make an excellent research study, don‘t you think?
Developer/experimenters can take snapshots/clones of the world as it speeds along to make sure
that everything is going well. This is a good point at which to test traveler interactions in the
world as well as to examine the various traveler movement and communication systems.
Independence Day. Once the last automated characters have ―passed on‖ and have been recycled
(literally, in some cases), the world will be truly independent, and the developer can think about
cloning snapshots of the world for wider use. These snapshots can come in episodes or
―worldsnaps‖, with each episode being a complete cloned snapshot of the world at a particular
point in time. (The moment of the snapshot is like sci-fi films in which ―time stands still‖.)
Travelers who‘ve spent some time interacting in a cloned independent character worldsnap of this
sort may well be interested in what has ―really‖ happened in the world since the snapshot was
taken. So... even though they may have spent some time interacting in a particular world, they
may also want to travel into a later version.
At this point, in worlds where travelers will only be ghosting independent characters, and a ―live‖
experience is desired, developers will want to slow time back to ―heartbeat‖ speed. Others are
likely to want to keep the world moving along at timestreak speed, but record and stockpile them
for later observation/editing, etc. (I see an entire, separate medium developing where the lives of
independent characters are edited/enhanced to provide entertainment closer to our TV/film
storytelling.)
Introducing Travelers into Independent Story worlds: The Traveling Salesman from Moscow
Problem. A very real and persistent problem in dram communities which are shared by more than a very
few travelers has to do with the reaction of independent characters to travelers who keep on ―popping in
and out of the community‖ like the proverbial traveling salesman from Moscow . How many travelers can
interact in a given community at a given time without totally disrupting the life of the community? It
seems to me that there are three main viable approaches to this dilemma: Worldsnap, Spyshape, and
Stand-in.
The Worldsnap approach requires that the independent character community be cloned at a particular
point in time. The cloned community (duplicated many times) becomes the environment in which
travelers interact. An interesting aspect of this approach is that although a single community snapshot
may be used by thousands of travelers, the effect of introducing the traveler into the community is likely
to have an effect on it, so that no two snapshot copies will have exactly the same flow after a while. This
means that the snapshots can be compared. I can see people getting quite involved in comparing
PartyWorld367 and PartyWorld399 time 5063:21:30. ―My Rolf and Angela never even talk to each other
after he throws the water bug on her in the bathroom.‖
Spyshape requires quite a bit more of the dram developer. In this approach the influence of an individual
traveler on a particular community of independent characters is minimized, either by temporarily storing
memory of the traveler‘s visit away from the community (so that the traveler is only remembered when
s/he is there) – a fairly invasive strategy – or, by restricting the parts of the community that may be visited
 Virtual Drama | 72

by individual travelers, and ―cleaning up‖ the effects that the traveler‘s visit might have had upon the
community outside of the traveler permission zone. You can see that the spyshapes strategy might be
most useful in independent communities where very few travelers are permitted access, but not for a mass
market.
The Stand-In approach requires that an independent character double version of the traveler be created
and integrated permanently into the independent community. When the traveler actually visits the
community, s/he will need to be carefully updated on events, relationships, etc. so as to not unduly disrupt
the flow of the community. This approach requires quite a commitment of time on the part of the traveler,
but has the advantage of allowing for the development of relationships between characters and travelers –
something quite difficult to achieve in most virtual communities.
Another version of the Stand-In approach assumes that there are only a finite number of human
personalities, and that travelers can find an existing character that ―fits them‖ – so that the trick is to find
a match between traveler and characters. How to deal with the discontinuity between the character‘s
normal inner life, and the periods of time when s/he is ―inhabited‖ by a traveler is more problematic.

Specialized Communities of Independent Characters

One of our main interests in developing virtual people is likely to be the opportunity it affords us to
observe and to interact with past, present, and future communities of individuals:
Zoos for Famous People. The literatures of many cultures contain historical fictions in which characters
from various periods are thrown together to see what will happen. Although it would be exciting to be
able to put all of the world‘s major philosophers into an independent community (BeingVille?), and all of
the world‘s sports starts into AllStarVillage, making these characters truly representative of their actual
personalities is unlikely, since we know very little about the public lives of most historical individuals –
much less their sexual preferences or favorite salad dressing.
We might be able to back into a representation of these characters by using diaries, interviews and other
corollary historical information, such as the fact that only certain foods were available at a particular time
and place, but one way or another developers will be producing fictions that could make some people
very, very upset. Even if we could get awfully close to the general behavior of a particular historical
person, that behavior may not fit well with the myth that has replaced the historical person in the public
imagination.
For many historical characters this won‘t make much difference. They may have been born into a
particular situation, or may have instigated certain events in a way that we can at least approximate. Many
will have done only one or two things that are out of the ordinary, and lived the rest of their lives in a
conventional way.
Much more difficult are the most interesting historical figures – the paradigm shattering geniuses. For
example, I‘ve heard major contemporary playwrights and filmmakers suggest that if Shakespeare (or
Edward de...:) ) were alive today he would probably be producing and writing TV series. Well, suppose
we were able to create independent Shakespeare and Moliere characters and put them to work in
HollyWorld. Will they adapt to the form and the pressure? Not a problem. Might ―powers that be‖ be
threatened by this. You bet.
But, I don‘t see us being able to do this any time soon. The big problem is that we don‘t really know
much about what makes someone creative/productive at world-class level. We can take managers and
help them think outside-the-box a little, but the geniuses of most disciplines have some (so far) undefined
―something‖ that sets them so far apart that they seem almost alien. We are likely to need advanced
artificial intelligences to help us synthesize these sorts of personalities. At the point at which this happens
we will also have to deal with the philosophical/ ethical/ ego issue of relating to non-human entities that
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are both smarter and more innovative than we are.

This means that it is likely to be easier to create characters who represent the past of an important
historical character than it is to represent their effective personalities in ways that will allow them to
interact in the present.
Until these problems can be worked out, I‘d see historical characters either represented ―in their natural
habitat‖ (history parks), or gathered together in communities where their main purpose will be to advance
existing knowledge.
History Parks. The crossover possibilities between storytelling and educational drams are likely to draw
developers into creating detailed, realistic, populated replicas of various earth locales in many different
time periods.
Although there are quite a few different ways a place can be depicted – especially if there are no known
accurate images of it – the amount of effort and expense it will take to reproduce entire historical towns,
cities, etc. makes it likely that a limited number of immersive versions will be produced for any particular
place, that various local governmental and historical organizations will be heavily involved in the project,
and the resulting ―dramspace‖ will be made available to developers for some fee.
Such ―history parks‖ could be populated by independent characters who live out their lives as part of the
background of various drams. For example, the opening shots of most films establish the locale, often
using people in costume. In drams you should be able to walk up to these characters and ask them what
they‘re doing. If the characters are automated, they may happily explain exactly what they‘re doing,
where they‘re going, and so forth. As independent characters, they‘re just as likely to tell you to mind
your own bloody business–seeming all the more real for that sort of reaction.
For dram developers the advantage of history parks is clear. They could transport major independent
characters into pre-existing settings to ―see what happens‖, or use automated characters who are likely to
be more traveler-friendly.
Social Simulation Communities. The advent of independent characters and History Parks makes it likely
that some dram environments will be used for social research. For example, let‘s say that global warming
(or an earthquake-induced tsunami) produces ocean height increases that force the populations of coastal
cities to flee inland. By establishing a base population of eminently realistic independent characters, the
effects of these events can be examined in some detail.
Of course, much less extensive simulations can be useful to researchers – such as fast forward
examinations of the effects of particular educational strategies, or, at a more mundane level, actual user
response to new products and services.
Me-Ville. Whether you think of it as a legacy for the future, or ―real people‖, or the ultimate narcissism,
individuals are likely to want to perpetuate themselves in dram form – putting up with endless hours of
scanning, observation and questioning to provide themselves with a form of immortality which represents
their own personalities (as edited, of course). An independent character double may well seem to many a
much more reliable continuation of self than biological offspring, clones, or having their names chiseled
into the walls of institutions.
The interaction between such doubles and the real world is a matter for legal speculation, but pity young
adults whose university stipend requires them to spend a certain numbers of hours each week listening to
the remonstrations of a 300 year old virtual ancestor! Sponsors will want these independent character
doubles to live somewhere interesting, and I can see entire worlds that strictly cater to the whims, wishes,
and unfulfilled fantasies of the not-so-recently deceased. In fact, MeVille could well become an important
dram innovation incubator, since funding is likely to be substantial.
Passion Corners. The ultimate soap opera. You can hear the sales pitch from here. ―A million stories to
choose from, a thousand communities to call your own. Passion, romance, terror, ecstasy. All yours
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for.....‖ This is the world envisioned in the sci-fi classic ―Fahrenheit 451‖ – communities of virtual
characters who live the heightened existence of conflict-based characters who become our best, our very
best, virtual friends.
Although I can see certain soap communities helping toward the socialization of our techno-isolated
population of data droids, ―soaped‖ characters – who specialize in betrayal, anger, vengeance, double-
dealing, blackmail, and other fun stuff–are likely to have quite the opposite effect.
The Really Big Town Meeting. A virtual community could be established in which characters represent
the opinions of each participating individual on every conceivable subject. I bring this up in a discussion
on independent characters because, although this sort of character might be limited in many ways, their
independence in expressing what they think (and feel) would be paramount. Such town meeting
communities could be used for large sample polling or to allow legislators and others to find out what
people ―really think‖. Of course to make such a scheme viable, a large number of the people of any
representative ―real‖ community would have to participate, and their opinions and beliefs would have to
be kept up-to-date. In another version of the town meeting, the detailed opinions of a large number of
people could be aggregated into fully independent characters who represent the point of view of a
particular segment of a society.
For example ―soccer moms‖ are quite important to U.S. politicians. They tend to be quite independent
voters, focus on family issues, can swing entire elections, and aren‘t easily fooled by either rhetoric or
dubious appeals to emotions. A small group of soccer mom independent characters could be created from
extensive sampling information. Candidates, bureaucrats, etc. could sit down with them and ask them
what they really think, and try to influence them in various ways.

Controlling Independent Characters

It seems a bit odd to talk about controlling characters that you have specifically designed to be as
independent as possible, but since we‘re certain to want variety in our virtual communities, and may need
to have characters act in particular ways at certain times, some sort of control mechanisms are going to be
needed.
There are three natural types of controls for independent virtual characters:
- Embedded in the characters themselves
- Acting on characters through their environment
- Story Elements that cause characters to make changes.

Embedded Controls

One way or another, we pre-determine elements of a character‘s existence, either by explicit sampling of
non-virtual beings to provide the basis for a character, or by structuring the process of development to
favor certain trait tendencies. However, it would be useful to make this process a bit more predictable by
installing in the pre-birth independent character quasi-biological structures that will nudge them in desired
directions.
Genotyping. By providing an independent character with a full set of genetic characteristics, we
immediately install probable directions in their story lives. If, for example, we predetermine that a
character has moderate ―intelligence‖, societally attractive features, athletic muscle and bone structures
and a large physical frame, plus a tendency toward child onset diabetes, we set into motion certain
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patterns of life activities, as well as patterns of response from other people.

As our information about the human genome becomes more detailed, we can pinpoint more many more
elements that can be controlled. Since these are story characters and not real people, we should also be
able to specify the timing of certain biological events or set up internal triggers to external environmental
events. This allows us to do predictive story analysis, since, for example, we know that Marta will be
nearsighted from an early age, unusually tall and awkward at age 13, will develop a mild form of asthma
at age 15.
Temperament Typing. If you‘ve raised children, or have spent time around infants and their parents,
you‘ve learned that children come into the world with certain personality characteristics already firmly in
place –– tendencies that we usually describe using words such as ―temperament‖. This could well be due
to combinations of genetic and fetal development factors, of course, but for our purposes we can set
certain, very general proclivities such as irritability, shyness, inquisitiveness, the all-important ability to
sleep through the night, or any other general tendencies we‘d like.
By combining genetic factors such as level of sensory acuity with temperament factors, such as strong
reactions to invasion of body boundaries, we can produce an infant character who wails or withdraws
every time a moderately loud noise invades the nursery. This tendency affects parents and the extended
family in various ways, and the first thing you know our independent character is perceived as being
―difficult‖.
Psychotyping. There is a whole range of human characteristics that we think of as being primarily
psychological in nature. Persistence, intelligence, dominance and dependency are examples. Although
these sorts of characteristics normally develop over time through interaction between the genetic
manifestation of people and their environment, for the purposes of dram story development, we could set
pre-birth ―triggers‖ that would activate a whole range of specific psychological tendencies for an
independent character.
By using particular theories of personality development to structure this psychotype, we can predetermine
a whole range of behaviors without making explicit changes either to characters or to their environment.

Environmental Controls

Sociotyping. By pre-determining a character‘s physical environment, food supply, family members,

friends, education, etc, we also direct likely avenues of behavior. For example, a character who is
naturally shy, but is placed in a boisterous family with few available friends, but who is exposed to an
excellent educational system might be expected to turn to reading, or to taking apart machines, or to
similar quiet pursuits.
Post-Hypnotic Controls. With both psychotyping and sociotyping, we‘ve been talking about pre-set
influences which are likely to push a character in a certain direction. Post Hypnotic Controls are specific
character behaviors which are triggered by environmental events.
One area where these triggers will be useful is in ensuring the safety of travelers in situations where
characters themselves may be the instrument of harm, or where travelers may be in imminent danger, and
failsafe mechanisms (such as angel characters) have malfunctioned.
Another potential use of post-hypnotic controls occurs when independent characters have migrated to
story worlds other than their own. Although we‘d expect some sort of pre-training to be provided (like
someone planning on living in a foreign country for some period of time), there may be environmental
situations, or non-verbal threat displays, which threaten the existence of the character.
Caution. Some developers will be tempted to use post-hypnotic controls for a variety of story based
processes. Constant interventions in the ongoing life of independent characters are likely to reduce their
 Virtual Drama | 76

usefulness. Better to use automated characters or in-story controls if you need to make lots of
interventions.

In-Story Controls

In story situations where the developer wants to make interventions in a character‘s activity without
resorting to post-hypnotic mechanisms, it is always possible to influence independent characters by using
control characters or storyline interventions
Control Characters are used time and time again in current storytelling forms. The main character is
driving down a street and someone pulls out to block the path. They are supposed to meet someone, but
an emergency develops at work. Two characters are walking toward a romantic tryst on the beach, but
they find that other couples are already there. The film ―The Truman Show‖ –– in which the central
character is raised from birth in the middle of a reality TV program which he thinks is the real world ––
does a particularly good job at showing how control characters can be used to influence a central,
independent character. An unexpected visit by AuntMadge from Minsk has much the same function.
Everyone‘s lives are influenced, if only briefly. Maybe Gregor has to postpone his proposal of marriage to
Lianna because of the visit. Maybe AuntMadge is a perfectionist busybody.
Storyline Interventions are changes in the environment – including settings, weather, and characters –
which introduce ―outside‖ elements that strongly influence the behavior of a group of characters. For
example, if RupertBeanpole has planned the company picnic for Sunday afternoon, a sudden gust of
wind, or squall, or plague of June bugs will definitely affect the group – forcing them inside, perhaps.
This technique is used quite a bit in action/adventure story forms. Everything is going along smoothly,
when Wham! the big problem comes up. These problems can be more subtle, as when AuntMadge has a
fit of sneezing caused by the family pet, Rocco, who is about to be sold by Julie to MrsTadpule in return
for those two unfortunate letters. You get the point.

Conclusion

The development of independent characters is a major undertaking which, once accomplished, opens the
door to immersive, interactive story environments that are practically unlimited in scope. The ability to
create truly independent characters will also mark a milestone in our understanding of human physiology,
psychology, and sociology, since a detailed understanding of these disciplines is needed to make these
characters truly convincing.
I expect such characters to be phased in through various stages of independence, and I imagine that we
will need to control them by influencing their heredity and environment in much the same way that our
lives are controlled by our own origins and inclinations. It wouldn‘t make much sense to such trouble to
develop these characters if they were strictly used in stories for entertainment. Their use in education,
psychology, research, and the new world of work offer added incentives. And, at some point, we may
need to decide whether these characters are so lifelike that they may need legal safeguards to assure their
independence
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DRAM SPACES & OBJECTS

Virtual Drama | 78
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Introduction

Dram Spaces & Objects

There are a vast number of possible places that a dram could use as a setting: from the exterior of an
active volcano as seen from a spaceship –– perhaps orbiting some distant planet in the 23rd Century –– to
the kitchen of a farmhouse in 14th Century France. In that sense, Virtual Drama isn't much different than
film.
The genuinely unique feature of a dram is the traveler‘s ability to "live" in the story, moving through and
looking around the space at will, turning on the faucet –– even operating the controls of that orbiting
spaceship. If travelers are being "ghosts" they are likely to want to shift through multiple points of view in
the space, to take the point of view of one of the other characters (surfing/ hitching/ diving), to jump from
one room or one continent to another (place-diving) or to hop from time period to time period (time-
diving) .
Since one of the major selling points of drams is likely to be their ability to blend learning and
entertainment in a single experience, the historical accuracy of setting, climate, costume –– even flora and
fauna –– is likely to be important for many drams. And if the traveler has become involved to the extent
of providing specifics of the spaces (anything from anecdotal detail through architectural plans), or if the
story is ongoing, the spaces must remember to stay the same from experience to experience –– just as the
traveler remembers them .
Finally, the type of story is likely to influence the way it is handled. For example, in mystery or adventure
sequences it might be important for a particular door to be locked or for the traveler to be able to see a
sequence of events from a certain window.
So, you see, the more spatial flexibility (and the greater accuracy and level of detail) travelers are given,
the more involving they are likely to find the experience, but the level of complexity for the dram space
designer increases greatly with every added option.

How This Section Will Proceed

Only a few of us –– such as dancers, gymnasts, high steel construction workers, and astronauts –– have
compelling reasons for constantly monitoring our own behavior in space. The rest of us necessarily keep
it at the subconscious level. "Have to move two steps left to avoid walking into that table." "This rooms
feels really uncomfortable."
 Virtual Drama | 80

For this reason I‘ll begin by looking at a scene that shows how a traveler might use space in a typical
mystery dram .
After this comes a bit of heavy lifting. First I‘ll present informal "how humans use space" overviews:
human sensory requirements and adjustments, moving through space, and the ways we interact with
others in space. Then we'll move on to storytelling uses of space and advanced features, including
intelligent spaces and objects and some ―tendencies‖ for specific story genres such as mysteries.
Finally, we'll take a very brief look at possible design approaches, including do-it-yourself dram
environments.

A Scene

Let's say that for your weekend entertainment you have decided to accompany a friend into her favorite
mystery dram, TheWileys –– set in a somewhat dangerous urban neighborhood. You don't really have the
time to do the pre-training required to actively participate in the dram the way your friend has done, so
you will be ghosting, but you do have peek-and-poke permission –– meaning that you can observe what is
going on from various vantage points, can lift up objects and are able to look inside things like books and
drawers. You also can "surf" characters and objects (take their sensory point of view), "hitch" them
(receive their memory images and ongoing thoughts as well as senses), or ―dive‖ them (actually go into
their past history). None of your activity, of course, will be visible to characters or to other travelers
except by prior arrangement.
Your friend, who lives in a distant city, has been participating in TheWileys for months, and has
accumulated quite a few bonus points for solving various mysteries in this dram community where
something/someone always seems to be lost, stolen, damaged, or dead. She will be playing the role of a
neighbor, and has told you that she will be actively involved in the scenario .
While your friend struggles into her new "bubblesuit" and tests the multi-directional ―gelwalker‖
treadmill she‘ll be using for action sequences, you pop on your ―sensemask‖, run through a quick
checkup, ask the program to adjust the auditory volume and range, and remind the testing guide character
that you have a slight inner ear imbalance. ―I know, I know,‖ says the somewhat bored guide. You switch
to the UrbanDiaries channel, where the dram story guide, Saundra, walks you through TheWiley‘s time
period and gives you some specifics about the family you've decided to visit. Saundra also gives you a
handful of red question marks that you can place on objects you would like to know about, and takes you
through the standard drill about navigating through the space .
You choose the persona you are going to use as your double in the dram. It will be invisible to characters
in the dram since you are ghosting, but visible to other travelers from your virtual neighborhood when
they activate the ―ghost channel‖. You check your private communication channel with your friend and
it's time to go into the dram.
You jump into a living room, into a corner behind the sofa, right in the middle of an argument between a
male character, Jack, and a woman, Ginny. The argument gets repetitive and you get tired of making side
comments to your friend –– who has been waiting to make her entrance and apparently cut off your
private channel so she can concentrate –– so you point your index finger toward the wall and make the
thumbs-up signal for a local jump. You are brought into a bedroom, where someone clearly has been
packing suitcases .
Just as you are starting to enjoy rummaging through the contents of a suitcase, the story guide, Saundra,
whispers to you that ―an event‖ is about to happen in the other room, so you jump back into the living
room just as Ginny throws a glass of wine at Jack. As the glass goes straight through you and smashes
 Virtual Drama | 81

against the wall, you instinctively duck and hold your hands over your head to avoid being pelted with
fragments of glass .
Your friend knocks on the apartment door and enters. You gasp when you see that she is about a foot
taller than usual, is wearing a very short skirt and a see-through blouse and that she exchanges a
―knowing‖ look with Jack. She tries to mediate the argument between Jack and Ginny. You notice that as
your friend walks on the broken glass it crunches under her combat boots. She walks over to the sofa,
carefully avoiding the coffee table. She must be using the new gelwalker she got for her birthday. Her
movement is very natural today. Or maybe this dram is one of the new ―simchar‖ ones that automatically
translates traveler movement into character-specific motion .
Anyway, she sits on the sofa and you join her there. The sofa feels overly soft but the fabric is pleasantly
rich to the touch. Maybe too soft. You pull down a set of virtual controls and adjust the sensory controls
to lower hand tactility. You touch her hand, but she doesn't notice, so she must have the ghost channel
turned off altogether. (You'd do the same thing yourself. There's nothing more disconcerting than seeing a
roomful of floating people watching your every move –– or worse, ignoring you.)
You take a look at the remains of the smashed glass. Something shiny lies buried in the fragments. You
reach down to pick it up. Its ―ghost‖ comes up in your hand. A diamond engagement ring. In a wine
glass? You try to get your friend's attention (this is surely a clue), but she still has you turned off, so you
take one of the red question marks and place it on the ring. Story guide Saundra's face appears above the
ring and tells you that the ring belonged to Jack's first wife, who died in a car crash. Saundra pulls up a
virtual "mystery scoreboard" and adds 100 points to your friend‘s team score. There are apparently
hundreds of ongoing mysteries in the UrbanDiaries neighborhoods –– everything from the missing salt
shaker to the smoking crater where the soap factory recently stood.
Meanwhile, the argument in the living room has escalated, and Ginny has begun hitting Jack repeatedly.
Your friend is behind her, trying to pull her away. There is the sound of a crash outside the window. You
float over to look. Someone has smashed the window of a red vehicle across the street. Your friend asks
you what happened. You tell her. As you turn back to her, you see that she has frozen the action to speak
to you. So this must be a private dram session. Hmmm. Expensive. Got to get her to buy dinner next time.
But, if that‘s true, who were the other travelers you saw earlier? Has someone hacked into the dram? Is
there a live international audience watching you and your friend watching the dram? Is your equipment
screwed up?
Guide Saundra tells you that the car belongs to Ginny's last husband, Akiro, who was just released from
prison for manslaughter. You make the hand signal that allows you to float outside the window. A bulky,
tattooed man is screaming obscenities up and down the street .
The action in the room unfreezes. Ginny goes over to the window and screams at the man, which
frightens you into backing through the lamppost. When you finally get back to the apartment Ginny has
gone, and your friend is on the sofa, kissing Jack. The ring from the floor is now on your friend‘s finger .
Hmmm, you think. This is going to be one helluva weekend
 Virtual Drama | 82

Properties of Spaces in Drams

Perceiving Space

Although drams will allow us to interact with non-human characters –– and even become them for a
while –– they will primarily contain human movement, human physical dimensions and perspectives, and
normal human use of objects .
Most of us are so used to living in and moving through space that we only notice what we're doing when
there‘s a problem. "Whoops, who moved that table there?" "My ears must be clogged today. I didn't hear
you come in." The biophysical processes we call our "senses" are designed to scan the space around us ––
both for safety and for advantage. To be able to survive and thrive, we need to be able to feel the
temperature and the direction of the wind, to hear small sounds in the distance, to see that berry bush
through the mist. Sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and kinesthesia, and the memories associated with
each of them, extend the boundaries of our zone of interaction in the world. These senses allow us to
perceive virtually any event which occurs within the range of our sensory acuity (our "senspace").
Importantly, our sense memory allows us to remember many of these events for future reference. There
are certain sensory events that seem to be hard-wired in our memories –– "big growling animal running
toward me" –– but we have to learn to associate most other sense events with their meaning and
importance.
In drams, where the sensory stimuli are computer generated, our senses have to be tricked into believing
that something more-or-less "real" is present. Film depictions of immersive dramatic environments
sometimes have the traveler's brain directly plugged into a computer system –– since inputting directly to
brain areas where sensory messages are interpreted avoids all the messy and complicated business of
fooling the senses. Until this sort of brain/sensory center interface is in common use, we have to look
toward solutions where the various senses are fed information using equipment that isn't intrusive or
physically harmful to the traveler. More about that as we move through this chapter.

Our Senspace

We use our constantly monitored, if imperfect, personal sensory systems to provide us with information
that allows us to interact with the world around us. The world around us is "space". For example, we can
sit perfectly still and have a shouted conversation with someone painting a billboard across the street or a
discussion with someone cooking dinner in the next room. Someone very close to us can hear the beating
of our heart.
Most of us move a lot, though, even in our sleep or during a long day working behind a desk. We are
constantly exploring the space around us. To protect us while we're doing this, we have what you might
 Virtual Drama | 83

think of as a series of spatial boundaries or layers that extend outward from the inside of our bodies to the
most distant sensations we can perceive. The closer something (or someone) comes to our skin, the more
potentially "invasive" that something becomes. A piece of sandpaper viewed on a workbench across the
room is quite different than a piece of sandpaper rubbing against our skin.
In drams, these spatial boundary layers need to be represented to be able to provide us with the most
"realistic" sorts of experiences. One problem has to do with determining the limits of sensory acuity for
travelers and for characters. Can the yellow-billed creature on the roof see me? Can I hear what it is
saying? Does it hear me yell "Come here and give me a golden feather?" Are these properties pre-set
based on surveys of human capabilities? Are they an integral part of character definition?
Another more important problem has to do with spatial boundary layers for interpersonal communication
among traveler/character groups who are being "human-like". If you‘ve visited different countries or have
taken courses in interpersonal communication, you understand the importance of interpersonal
boundaries. In some cultures people stand six inches from each other and constantly touch. In other
cultures, two to three feet is an appropriate conversational distance, and heaven forbid someone should
touch someone else without explicit permission or a longstanding relationship.
Let's take a look at four spatial boundary layers: private, intimate, conversational, shout, and observation:
Private Space. Anything within the body cavity itself is crucial to our functioning. Our senses
are centered in the body, and we tend to feel that our consciousness is located somewhere inside
the head. We can sense the movement of individual muscles, our breath, and the lips, tongue,
teeth and fleshy bits of the mouth when chewing. When private space is invaded without
permission, we tend to get very upset. Except for medical purposes, we tend to only permit
private space to be shared by sexual partners, food, drink, and useful implements.
In drams, private space becomes important where scenarios permit travelers to enter into the
internal sensory world of characters through what I call surfing/hitching/diving. When the
traveler is wearing full sensory apparatus and uses a body filter to make sensory translations,
some semblance of the actual sensory world of a character can be presented.
The sensory images, thoughts, and feelings encountered while surfing/ hitching/ diving characters
are another story –– and require devices such as partial visual displays (say, ―virtual bifocals‖ or
―vifocals‖) in which the internal imagery/ thoughts/ memories of characters can be displayed
clearly to travelers without overwhelming their own sensory channels.
Intimate Space. An area that extends from the body by an arm‘s length in all directions is
"intimate space" –– space that we allow to be shared by family, close friends, and objects. This is
the "hugging/grasping zone". In drams we will be able to actually touch other people and to
adjust our position, vocal tone and volume, and nonverbal signals relative to them. Since a certain
number of travelers, freed from normal social restraints through the relative anonymity of some
drams, are likely to inappropriately invade the intimate space boundaries of others, the situation
may call for the installation of "bumper zones" around the zone of intimate space. Travelers who
are not intimate with characters/other travelers find themselves "pushed away" when they attempt
to invade that space. Personal bodyguards perform much the same function for human celebrities.
Conversation Space. A zone which extends outward from intimate space by 2-10 feet, is an
important region we can call "conversational space". Most human interaction is done at that
distance. Think of the outer boundary of conversation space as the distance people of a given
culture normally sit from each other when they have friends over. Cultures vary widely in their
definition of appropriate distances for intimate and conversational space. In creating drams to be
viewed by specific cultures great care will have to be taken to adjust for these differences to avoid
giving offense or conveying the wrong message. On the other hand, the great advantage of
computerized story environment such as drams is that adjustments should be able to be made "on
the fly". Bumper zones can be added to a traveler's body filter so that if the traveler moves
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within/without the comfort zone for normal conversation for a particular culture, a private alarm
can sound or the traveler can be physically moved away/toward another character/traveler. This is
one area where pre-dram training modules will be useful, since many travelers will have too
much pride to want to be seen bouncing all over the place during an actual scenario.
Shout Space. We are foraging, hunting, building, harvesting animals who pass on instructions,
warnings, etc. by shouting or signaling to each other over distances which can extend to a
kilometer or more beyond conversational space –– shout space. To have our shouts/signals
understood at great distances, though, we usually need to have learned specialized techniques.
Since travelers moving through a dram in groups are likely to have personal communication
devices/channels that make both the verbal and nonverbal aspects of their communication opaque
to story characters and to travelers not part of the group, shout space makes more sense taking
place between story characters –– including travelers who are being characters. The relative
sensory acuity of characters, existing weather conditions, etc. will affect shout communication in
drams as in life. For example, within an adventure dram set in a mountainous region it might be
extremely useful for a character to have particularly sharp eyesight, and/or to understand some
nonverbal signal system.
Observation Space. Human eyes are well adapted for distance and for 3D viewing. We can
move our eyes rapidly and pick up enormous amounts of detail during a quick scan of a room or
of the horizon. This distance warning system allows us to observe without being close enough to
interact (i.e. be chased and eaten). And the flexible design of our neck and upper torso allows us
to "peek" from behind large objects while exposing very little of the rest of our body. As with
shout space, travelers‘ actual sensory acuities will need to be determined in advance so that
modifications can be made if they are playing characters or if they will be in a situation where
particular sensory abilities/disabilities are important. For example, if a traveler is playing a
character who is well known to be extremely nearsighted, the section of the body filter which
controls eyesight will need to adjust. If a character is known to be able to see unusually well in
the dark, the body filter should provide a traveler who has normal night vision with some extra
illumination within the space .

Individual Perceptual Differences

Although we only tend to talk about it when a problem arises, we humans actually have quite a wide
range of individual sensory abilities. Near-sightedness and far-sightedness, color-blindness and tone-
deafness are some common differences. Within the "normal" range of sensing, though, there are also
striking differences –– which sometimes create problems in relationships, as when one person has much
"better" hearing/eyesight (or sense memory) than another and arguments arise about what actually was
perceived. These individual sensory differences can be magnified by our internal states or conditions. For
example, if I have the flu, I am likely to "withdraw" my senses, and may have blurred vision and so-so
balance. If I am pre-occupied by a problem, I may cross a street and not sense an oncoming car.
In drams these sorts of differences are likely to be amplified and must be accommodated in some way.
For example, if I am a traveler who is slightly nearsighted, has some balance problems, and hasn't
climbed anything in 20 years, GreatZorroMountainAdventure isn't likely to be very satisfying to me if it's
calibrated for 17 year-old athletes .
Body Filters. Although computer generated immersive environments could certainly be tailored to
individual sensory differences, team or group experiences produced using this approach are likely to be
unwieldy, so some sort of "sense-bubble" or "body-sense-filter" surrounding the individual traveler seems
to me to be a better solution. Such body filters would be virtual rather than real, so that a zone which
represents the traveler's sensory space would have special properties in the dram world and would be
closely linked to their sensory/physical apparatus. The traveler's virtual sensory space zone, or body filter,
 Virtual Drama | 85

would then interact with the zone that represents the rest of the dram world in a manner similar to our
own natural sensory perception of the space around us. In this way, sensory adjustments to individual
body-filters can be made without affecting the physical properties of the rest of the dram space.
For example, if a traveler is extremely sensitive to bright light, her body filter –– having been warned in
advance of the problem –– could subtly reduce the effect of the Sahara sun, while her fellow traveler, who
can't stand the feeling of sand on his skin, might have tactile sensitivity reduced. That cactus the two of
them are eating might need to have flavor enhancers added as well. All of this is done without altering the
representation of the desert world itself –– just the sensory perception of that world by two different
travelers using body filters.
Individual differences also call for a set of controls which will allow the traveler to alter the body filter
during the scenario itself. For example, if I want to participate in MountEverestAdventure –– where
travelers actually climb (in a harness rig) and experience altitude effects using oxygen apparatus, and if
I'm really not in condition to make the entire climb, I might want to adjust my body filter –– which would
be in direct communication with the apparatus –– as I go along. In this way I can test myself, but not to
the point of physical harm. Of course, with biomonitoring in place, the angel character should have the
last word if I try to push myself too far, and story guides should use whatever technique works to get
avoid traveler harm. ―Ezio, you‘re turning blue, you idiot! Here. I‘m taking a picture to show your girl
friend.‖
Body filters could also be used in situations where the traveler is role-playing a character who needs to
have particular physical/sensory characteristics –– and the ―simchar‖ program isn‘t being used. For
example, a character who has extraordinarily good distance vision, but only sees in gray-scale and hops
along on one leg could be approximated by the travelers body filter, thus providing a better simulation of
the character for the traveler .
All of this requires a certain amount of intelligence on the part of the body filter, and I can see them
acting like specialized, low-level intelligence characters, with personalities tailored to individual travelers.
For example, if a particular traveler has sensory acuity which, for some reason, varies drastically from
day to day, the body filter might be primed to ―enjoy‖ constant change.
Techniques such as body filters, which allow for individual sensory differences –– without requiring
entirely different dram spaces –– will be an important part of sophisticated dram experiences since they
allow travelers with very different physical capabilities to simultaneously participate in and enjoy the
same scenarios.

The Reality of Dram Spaces & Objects

Introduction

Most of us are exceptionally good at distinguishing the difference between 3D spaces and objects and 2D
representations of them –– as long as we are close enough to view or sense them properly. Even though
we accept the convention of photography/ film/ drameo as being 3D images projected in 2D form, only
the most realistic "special effects" trickery will fool us into thinking 2D is 3D –– at least after our
visual/spatial systems are fully developed in childhood –– simply because we are designed for a 3D
world. An important part of that design is our ability to scan spaces and objects by focusing and
refocusing our two eyes and moving our head and body. We rapidly compare the different views that we
get and make an evaluation. We do this not to see whether what we're looking at is real –– useful only to
beings living in a world full of mirages or apparitions –– but to identify what we see as specifically as
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possible. If we are close enough to an unfamiliar object, we may well touch it and/or pick it up –– to
familiarize ourselves with its solidity, texture, and weight. For example, we have to learn –– through trial
and error and parental screams of terror –– that that little red blob on the horizon will become a two ton
red automobile in the thirty seconds it takes to reach us.
In drams we are immersing ourselves in a 3D environment. The only comparable story experience we are
likely to have is with traditional theater, in which spaces are often viewed from the front only and where
perspective tricks (such as painted scenery) are used to approximate 3D. All of our other life experiences
tell us to expect that 3D objects/spaces will be solid, touchable, and will have "depth". We never see
things that aren't composed of multiple layers of dense, opaque material. As infants we have to learn to
not crawl/walk into clean glass doors. Most attempts at true 3D projection –– such as holographic
displays where you can walk around objects –– tend to use specialized light sources and dark rooms. The
images are often "ghostly" –– meaning too few layers –– but we recognize what they are, and may even
be tempted to reach out and touch them.
Virtual Drama spaces will have to do much, much better than that if travelers are going to feel
comfortable enough to "live" in them for extended periods of time.

Common-Sense Tests of Spatial “Reality”

Here are some common-sense tests humans use to determine the "reality" of a space/object:
This object keeps its shape and physical relationship to me no matter how quickly I move my head and
no matter where I am in relation to it. This is also true of moving objects, such as streams or people. In
drams, any "lag" time between traveler head movement and the re-display of the virtual world
immediately signals "not real" –– not to mention the effect it has on body balance. The body-filter
approach, in which the area around the traveler's virtual body becomes an object which interacts with the
rest of the virtual world, offers some hope here. A larger problem related to head and eye movement has
to do with our tendency to constantly "zoom" focus and re-focus our eyes. In drams, either zoom-focus
will have to be performed manually in some way (as in computer games where the traveler is functionally
superhuman), or the actual movement of the eye as it refocuses will need to be detected by the body filter
and reflected in the view of the scene .
Surfaces of spaces and objects have textures that aren‘t completely regular –– even if they are supposed
to be ―regular‖. For example, no two pieces of natural wood are exactly alike. Even glass windows have
observable reflections which makes each one sensorily unique. In drams, displaying all the possible
texture and light/shadow effects we expect to see "naturally" becomes a daunting task, since the number
of shadow/color variations observed for one piece of furniture in a sunlit room in the course of single day
is substantial –– not to mention the effect of light bounced from thtat piece of furniture to other surfaces.
One way of (slightly) reducing the complexity here is by using body filters for travelers and "light-
tracking-objects" within a scene. For example, if a traveler is standing next to a chair, a certain amount of
ambient light will be available to the traveler's eye. When the body filter adjusts for the traveler‘s visual
acuity, the light bouncing off the top of the chair will appear to dim, brighten, change color, and so forth,
depending on the filtering.
If, on the other hand, the sun or some other source of light illumination becomes an object in its own
right, and other objects, such as our chair, are intelligent enough recognize the light source and the effect
it has on them, they should be able to create their own light and shadow overlays. For example, if I am a
chair within this dram space, before I display myself I check to see the relative position of major light
sources –– direct, ambient, and reflected –– that are within my "view". I then calculate the
amount/direction of shadow/ glare/ bounce that should be present in my own display and communicate
that to other objects that I might affect in turn –– whether or not a traveler or a character is observing. The
traveler's body filter then picks up the displays of the various objects in the room and adjusts them with an
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overlay for traveler characteristics such as visual acuity, tiredness, level of attention, and so forth.
A fairly tricky problem has to do with travelers or characters who are moving within a scene that has
complex lighting detail. Since the traveler's perspective is always the most important, the body filter will
need to reflect changes in perception, perhaps overlaying changes in detail onto the scene while
communicating directly with the objects and surfaces in the room. For example, in a situation where a
traveler passes in front of a sunny window, a general decrease/re-direction of illumination will occur for
all other characters/travelers in the room. In this particular case it is would probably be more efficient for
the traveler/character to cast an actual shadow that would overlay the rest of the entities in its path.
When I move in relation to a space or object it exhibits the shape and texture properties I expect to see
when moving toward/away from ―things‖. For example, we wouldn't expect to be able to identify a
particular human face until it is a certain distance away –– depending on our eyesight. The fabric weave
of the person's jacket shouldn't be visible until we are quite close to each other. In drams, object
perspective and texture-tracking could be handled by the body filter, as long as the body filter and the
object are communicating with each other. For example, if I am an embroidered sofa pillow, I could
communicate several texture states for all of my sides to some central room control, which announces that
information as a broadcast about the contents of the entire room to body filters which enter the space. The
body filter then judges the distance, angle, and so forth, and determines which display should be
―interpreted‖. Another alternative is to have the pillow communicate a single (closeup) texture state (in
current lighting conditions) and to have the body filter interpret the display for the traveler.
If I walk over to this object, I will be able to touch it and feel its edges, texture, and temperature. If I
can pick it up, it will have a certain weight. If the object is large, e.g. a wall, I will hurt myself if I try to
walk through it. In early 20th century film documentaries of explorers meeting "native peoples" for the
first time, tribespeople are sometimes seen touching the explorers –– one supposes to assure themselves
that these strange, dirty, ghost-colored creatures are real, and to transfer some of the magic of their
presence to themselves. In drams, this sort of "ultimate reality test" requires specialized equipment such
as a sensuit and some sort of exoskeleton or force field arrangement to approximate weight, mass, and
solidity. (See the section "Moving Through Space", below, for a bit more discussion of equipment.) We
often forget just how sensitive our fingertips are, and the vast amount of experience we have in estimating
the weight of objects.
If the space or object is represented as part of a painting, photograph, film, drameo, or hologram, it
isn‘t real, and I won't be able to touch it as I would a "real" space/object, although I may believe that the
representation is a picture of an object that once existed. In drams, the major problem is in displaying
realistic 3D surfaces. In a perverse way, the presentation of a 2D object, such as a photograph, within a
dram is a good test of the dram as a 3D world, since it should be abundantly clear to the traveler just how
different the photograph is from the rest of the world.

Sense Memory

A great deal of our early learning has to do with memorizing various spaces, substances, surfaces, objects,
and body parts, along with their names and functions. For example, a drinking implement may have a
handle, and may be made of various substances, but it is probably made of glass, wood, ceramic, or
plastic, and although manufacturers work very hard to fool us, the closer we get to this drinking
implement, the more we will recognize about its composition. Sense memory applies to all of the senses.
Taste and smell are so critical that we tend to remember all sorts of details associated with them. I used to
do a sense-awareness workshop where I started off by asking people the last time they had a particular
(slightly unusual) food. The ability of people to remember when and where they last had an ice-cream
sundae never fails to astound me. In drams, both travelers and characters will need to remember certain
sensory details of the dram world. Travelers are likely to remember aspects of a scenario they have
traveled through recently, but will certainly need a "refresher" experience to remind them of details of
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drams they haven't visited for a while. The key question here is under what conditions a record of the
traveler's involvement in the world should be maintained. There are both data storage and privacy issues
involved here. In some types of scenarios, characters are going to need to remember sensory details
surrounding particular travelers –– especially if the scenario simply picks up wherever the traveler left the
dram –– no matter how many weeks ago. For example, it might not be particularly important that the
character "Sid" remembers the color of sweater worn by traveler Elsie, but if Sid and Elsie have some sort
of relationship, Sid will certainly remember what Elsie looks like, and is likely to bring up certain sensory
details of their life together. "That guy with the dalmatian puppy went by again." "Try not to burn the
potatoes this time, OK."
And, of course, characters/travelers will have differing levels of recall for sensory details, so that a
customized "selective memory filter" will have to be applied to any raw data memory of a particular dram
experience.

Moving Through Space

Introduction

Our senses wouldn't do us much good if we couldn't run away from the sound of danger or toward the
smell of food or into the remembered cool shade of a grove of trees. We have quite a range of built-in
possible movements –– and we use as many as we can. The bones, muscles, joints, and tendons of our
bodies allow us to walk, climb, run, hold and lift things, sit, crawl, swim, dance, lie flat, or curl up into a
ball. We have invented devices that extend this movement ability so that we can throw things, make and
repair things, bicycle, ski, motor, boat, and even fly .
In drams travelers will normally be physically confined to small, interior spaces in the real world, so most
movements they want to make in the dram world will have to be translated/aided by apparatus.

Movement Apparatus For Drams

Although I'm making a point of staying away from descriptions of possible equipment in these Notes, it's
hard to describe topics like maneuvering in space without bringing up some possibilities. Here goes.
We can break down dram movement apparatus into two general categories: devices that primarily sense
muscle/shape movement, and devices that both sense and enable/hinder muscle movement.
Movement Sensing Apparatus for Drams. Devices that are primarily going to sense body movement
need to be as inobtrusive as possible. The ideal device would be one where the traveler's movements are
tracked from a distance –– say from the surfaces of an intelligent room. Such devices are likely to be
better at tracking large muscle movements such as leg/arm activity than following small muscle activities
such as the facial muscles crucial for nonverbal communication, or finger movements –– important for
tool manipulation.
Sensuits. Another approach is to wrap the body in some sort of sensing material and to send the
information directly to a dram space controller. Such sensuits can be made of many different materials,
but the traveler must be able to live comfortably in the suit for long periods of time. One advantage of the
sensuit is that small muscle movements can be sampled directly, and although facial muscles aren't likely
to be included in the area covered by such a suit (too claustrophobic with most fabrics unless they are
painted on), fingers certainly would be .
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Another advantage of the sensuit is that it can be used to create a body-shape-and-movement signature for
the traveler in the dram world. In initial sessions with the suit, an individual traveler might go through a
pretty full range of motion using available apparatus like treadmills. The dram world would then have a
functioning model of the traveler that can be reduced to movement formulas. After the calibration period,
the suit would be able to update the model and/or to trigger the representation of the traveler in the dram
world. From the comfort point of view, I'd prefer to see a suit that is sprayed on the body –– perhaps a
mist that adheres even over clothing or safely around sensitive facial areas.
Twitch Suit. If travelers can be trained to use very small muscle motions to stand for various activities
such as walking or running, it should also be possible for them to experience drams lying down. The basis
for this approach is that visualization of motion produces actual firing in the muscles involved under
certain conditions. In question: the amount of traveler training required, and the physical side-effects of
spending long periods of time in micro-motion mode.
Dream Cap. Another couch-potato approach would be to pick up visualized motion directly through
some non-invasive brain scan technique. A "dream cap" could provide the dram controller with extremely
rapid data about a traveler's intended movement. Once again key constraints are the amount of training
necessary and the fatigue factor from concentrating on movement processes that are normally habituated
to the point where they don't enter consciousness.
Movement Enabling/Hindering Apparatus. Many travelers will want to participate fully in the physical
activity of a dram. Otherwise, why not watch a film or play an interactive computer game? They will
want to run, crawl, swim, fly, and yes, make love, in all sorts of exotic locations and situations, and some
will want a puddle of sweat on the dram room floor to prove it!
This calls for equipment that will allow travelers to:
- move long distances without moving far at all;
- experience the sensation of touching and lifting objects and exerting pressure against surfaces
such as walls, furniture, etc.;
- participate in normal human activities such as sitting, climbing, or leaning against a bar rail .
Move long distances without moving far at all. Various multi-directional treadmill-like devices are
possible where the traveler is free to run, skip, or crawl as quickly as they'd like. The problem here is in
representing ground terrain for the most realistic sorts of drams. This calls for some sort of bubbled-
treadmill effect where the surface of the apparatus "bubbles-up" –– either physically (a gelwalker) or
using a shaped force-field of air –– to produce the kind of terrain represented in the visual display
presented to the traveler. Harnesses, such as those for special effects stunts in films, when used with
treadmills, can simulate a number of atmospheric effects, such as wind, and can be used to rescue
travelers from nasty falls.
An interesting problem surfaces when we think about a traveler viewing dram characters who are moving
and conversing. The film/TV convention is to have the camera tracking backward a short distance in front
of the character, so that the story visitor seems to be floating in front of them. This approach would work
well when a traveler is "ghosting", since the traveler could indicate –– through a hand signal, verbal
command, menu, etc. –– who is to be followed and would then be "attached" to the characters, with some
allowable orbit of motion around them.
Where the traveler is actively participating in the dram –– as in the little scene that began this section ––
other methods are called for. This particular situation might call for a "Closeup screen", which is a
closeup of the front view of characters displayed transparently in the air in front of the traveler or as part
of a personal control panel, but not visible to other characters or travelers.
Of course a truly realistic participatory dram wouldn't allow closeup screens, and travelers would have to
get information the way they do in life –– by eavesdropping or asking questions.
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Touching, lifting, and exerting pressure. Gravity effects and physical resistance are important aspects
of the "real" world, and we will expect to experience them in drams. That box in the corner has weight
and shape in addition to color and texture. We want to be able to lift it and throw it out the window when
we discover there's a bomb inside, or unwrap it to see the birthday present. When we are finished with the
present, we want to open the closet door and put it on a shelf with our supply of discarded gifts.
All of these activities assume that something is acting on the body of the traveler. For the box to have
weight, "something" must be weighing down on the traveler's hands and arms. Some sharp edge must be
pressing into the traveler's arms as s/he lifts it up to the closet shelf.
A sensuit is a thin layer of material, liquid, or air which surrounds the body (or part of the body)
and can simulate tactile activity, such as walking in a light breeze.
A bodycloud expels a fine mist around the traveler, and acts as a fully mobile sensory
filter/projector. When added to a sensuit, it will be a bit like walking around surrounded by your
own personal 5D projection system. This will be especially useful for immersion in scenarios
where travelers are moving through a non-virtual space as part of the dram, for example, if you
are walking through an actual Gothic castle as part of a live dram experience .
An exoskeleton is literally an external skeleton which supports and moves the body of the
traveler. When sufficiently supported, say, by the floor or walls of a room, it can allow a traveler
to fly, leap, or climb Mt. Everest. Less restrictive exoskeletons can be configured to be like
lightweight prosthetics and can provide for resistance necessary for tasks like carrying heavy
objects.
A bubblesuit acts like a combination sensuit and exoskeleton. The inner layers of the suit can
apply the sort of limited area pressure necessary to simulate tactile activity (such as running your
arm over a block of ice). Other layers could increase/decrease body part temperature, or could
become rigid/heavy to simulate the effect of an exoskeleton.
Participate in activities such as sitting, climbing, leaning. An extremely flexible, adaptable bubblesuit,
along with a harness rig, would allow us to perform quite a range of activities. However, it would be
preferable if something in the dram performance space itself acted as sofa, refrigerator door, and so forth:
A multiwalker is a multidirectional treadmill which allows for some variation in slope and
surface tension.
A gelwalker is a multidirectional treadmill with gel-like surfaces that change tension, hardness,
texture on command from the dram control program and can simulate everything from a swamp
to walking on a trash-strewn pavement. This could be an early, controlled application of nano-
assembler technology.
A grasshopper is a combination freestanding heavy duty exoskeleton-harness and
multidirectional walking surface –– a bit like an overgrown piece of gym equipment –– that
allows the dram world to simulate activities such as riding (everything from bulls to spaceships),
flying, and press-pull actions such as pushing open a heavy door. It swings surfaces –– for sitting,
pushing, etc. –– in and out of the traveler's field of motion (or inflates and deflates them), and
assumes that the position of the traveler can be very precisely determined. When combined with a
sensuit, bodycloud or bubblesuit –– essentially body filters for sight, hearing and touch –– a
grasshopper should be able to be simulate fairly sophisticated activities without taking up a lot of
space.
In a magicloset, surfaces pop out of the walls, ceiling, and floor of a small, specialized room
which is also equipped with a gelwalker-treadmill. The traveler, who would probably be wearing
an eye display and some sort of bubblesuit/ harness combination, moves through the scenario,
with the closet popping out chairs, tables, bushes, and all manner of non-moveable surfaces. If the
popout surfaces are multilayered, external layers can approximate softness/hardness, which, when
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added to texture conveyed through the bubblesuit, could make for a much more "natural"
experience. With a sophisticated in-wall cellular 3D projection system added, reliance on glasses
display could be reduced. Good for group experiences. ―Visit Mars and go for pizza.‖
A nanoroom is, in effect, the TV Star Trek Holodeck. As the traveler moves through the space,
apparently real surfaces, objects (and even people) are created "just-in-time" to populate the dram
environment. The effect would be produced either through nanotechnology –– where the surface
of the structures are built on the spot by nanoassemblers or cellular entities and the insides of
structures are only built if it is known/sensed that they are going to be used –– or by using a
combination of force-fields and projected images. I like to fantasize about a form of ―heavy air‖
whose molecules can be instructed to form shapes and textures.

Individual Movement Characteristics

Because we have to learn how to move –– especially for activities which require carefully controlled
movements –– and because our body parts (as individuals) differ in size, strength, and flexibility, we each
have slightly different movement patterns. A Mr. Johnson might lurch from side to side as he walks,
while Mrs. Johnson glides smoothly, as though balancing a book on her head. Mrs. Johnson might be all
thumbs while trying to take apart the cuckoo clock, and Mr. Johnson might scream in frustration at the
eye-hand coordination required to prepare a meal. Baby Johnson walks two steps and then flops on her
belly, squealing with delight the whole time.
One cue that shows us that an animated cartoon is "just" a cartoon is the stereotyping of character
movement patterns. This is done as a cost-saving measure, of course, but it points up the fact that an
individual has a range of motion that is determined by genetics, nutrition, and life history. In creating
virtual characters, care will need to be taken to individualize their movement. Where travelers are role-
playing characters, traveler idiosyncratic movement will need to be translated into character movement.
Simchar Language. Just as the ―charan‖ language –– a private language used by virtual characters and
dram control –– would help keep scenarios moving along smoothly, so a simchar language could help
travelers move in character by translating general movement requests into character specific movement,
and communicating that movement to dram control, to virtual characters, to the character doubles of other
characters, and even to intelligent objects and spaces [see below]. For example, if you are a traveler
playing a mid-ranked samurai visiting the imperial court, every movement and gesture you make might
well have significance. The EmperorWangGun dram might offer you several different levels of assisted
movement –– based on the amount of movement translated using simchar –– so that you can get through
a meal without getting your head cut off.

Movement Re-Directed by the Space Itself

Because our natural and man-made environments are not smooth and regular, but constantly cluttered
with shapes near and far –– even in a desert –– our movement has evolved to allow us to twist and turn,
swivel around, bend, hop, and make adjustments of many kinds to allow us to move on, through, under,
and into all sorts of physical spaces. A typical apartment contains a variety of obstacles that have to be
negotiated. Walking in soft sand or snow requires different movement patterns than running through a
field or up a rock-and-rut studded mountain trail. We use our senses –– especially sight –– to pick out
obstacles, then we plot out a course –– a movement map –– that will allow us to avoid/meet the obstacle.
From the point of view of navigating through obstacles, we can define a few types of spaces: bounded,
transitional, open/broken, open/unbroken, and alien:
Bounded Space. When we scan a natural or man-made space, we look for pathways that will allow us to
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move through or out of the space. We are nomadic by nature, after all. A space that allows very few
movement pathways out of the space is bounded. This could be a room, a dense forest (perhaps only 1-2
trails), the edge of a lake or ocean, etc. If, for example, we are at the beach, we may be clearly bounded
on the ocean side, but might have multiple exits available on the land side. If the sand is very hot and we
forgot to bring shoes, we may have very few unbounded options. The shape, size, and color of a bounded
space can have significant psychological effects on individuals.
The size and shape of a bounded space in a dram is likely to depend more on the scenario than anything
else. Historical period, wealth, class, and "taste" will have a great deal to do with dram bound-aries and
their appearance. For example, an 18th century palazzo is likely to have gigantic stone rooms hung with
tapestries. However, it should be possible to customize such spaces to accommodate the special needs of
travelers.
Bounded spaces such as rooms also tend to be filled with furniture and other objects. Travelers and
characters need to know that these structures are present, and must have techniques for avoiding/using
them. Although our rooms tend to be laid out with clear areas that allow us to pass from room to room
without obstruction, within rooms themselves we often need to do a little shuffle-dance (sometimes
moving sideways) to move around furniture, plants, etc. This dance of avoidance requires extremely
quick eye-body coordination, which provides a special challenge to dram developers. Although characters
can have an advance map of the space transmitted to them, travelers are likely to assume that they can
negotiate such spaces as they do in life. This puts severe demands on the traveler/dram world interface,
since any "lag" time between traveler movement (say on that multidirectional treadmill) and movement of
the traveler's persona in the dram world will be interpreted as a failure of the system/world.
One way of handling this situation is by creating "expected-motion" maps for individual travelers as their
sensuits and other apparatus are being calibrated. If the dram world can more or less predict the traveler's
next motion sequences, "lag" time should be able to be substantially reduced. Another approach is to use
the simchar language.
Transitional Space. When we are moving from one space to another, we sometimes pass through
corridors, tunnels, bridges, etc. that only interest us from the point of view that they allow us to pass
through, over, or around something else. However, since these sorts of passageways are naturally
threatening (easy to be trapped or jumped on), we tend to be cautious when navigating them.
Transitional spaces of this sort exist in nature as well, of course. At one time I had a daily commute over a
long, narrow, exitless road through the middle of a dense forest. Even on bright, sunny days I had an eerie
feeling making this ride. At first I thought it was all those Grimm fairy tales at work, but people who had
made that commute all of their lives told me that they never really got used to it. Trapped is trapped.
Transitional areas are absolutely essential to the structure of drams because they provide a little lead time
from the point where a traveler leaves one space to the point where an entirely different scene has to be
prepared for display by the dram program. These areas can also be used to prepare the traveler for the
"feeling" of the upcoming story space. For example, if we are moving from a courtyard to the interior of a
haunted castle, the entrance hallway can echo our footsteps in a particular, disturbing way. Gargoyles on
wall sconces might echo themes of horror. Scuttling, nameless animals would warn us of neglect, decay,
and death. Still feel positive about that room at the end of the corridor?
If transitional spaces are relatively narrow (e.g. doorways), we are also much more likely to touch them as
we pass through, so their solidity becomes an issue in assuring the traveler that the space is "real".
Transitional spaces will also tend to reduce the speed of character movement, since that large oak door
has to be opened and closed, and that darkened tunnel has to be navigated slowly to avoid stepping on
something unpleasant. You get the picture.
This also means that transitional spaces can be extremely useful to the dram developer who wants to alter
the pattern of traveler/character movement. For example, in PrisonerofZenda, a small group of travelers
might be closing in on the "bad guy" a bit too quickly. The dram space controller, seeing this, might make
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the length of a rarely used transitional tunnel just a bit longer, or a bit darker, or that door a bit heavier or
its lock more difficult to open.
Open/Broken Space. Most outdoor spaces have some sort of visible features or structures that break up
the space visually, and offer a hiding place for us –– or for someone/thing else. If the features are
high/opaque enough to prevent us from looking over or through them to the rest of the open space, they
become obstacles that may have to be dealt with.
Practically every outdoor dram space falls into this category. Outdoor spaces allow for very rapid
movement, and for unusual movement patterns such as climbing trees, clambering over rocks, dodging
overhanging branches. Since these sorts of activities are potentially dangerous for actively participating
travelers, I'd expect outdoor drams to have a full complement of biomonitoring and safety features.
Travelers can also get lost in such spaces –– ever try to find your way through one of the older European
cities? –– so mapping instruments such as "ghost maps" –– which pop out of the air and show the position
of the traveler relative to the world –– will be quite useful.
It seems to me that it would be most efficient to model open/broken spaces on existing outdoor spaces,
since both human-populated and "pristine" spaces have natural design patterns that would take quite a
while to get "right" by trial and error.
Open/Unbroken Space. Since most of the earth is covered by ocean, when we are at sea –– out of sight
of land –– we are in a space that is only broken by swells, birds, clouds, and the odd passing ship. In
extensive deserts or prairies we run into a similar situation. Both kinds of spaces are inherently
threatening –– since we could easily become lost without landmarks. We require special
guidance/knowledge to become comfortable with open/unbroken spaces.
Travelers moving through/on/over open, unbroken spaces often require specialized apparatus (ship,
aircraft, sand-walking treadmill, swim-harness, prairie schooner) to negotiate the terrain –– which is
ultimately hostile to human life. Longer drams which use such spaces are likely to require specialized
training, and biomonitoring/safety/rescue features will be very important for realistic scenarios.
Alien Space. Any space whose fundamental appearance/ properties differ significantly from spaces we
have experienced are "alien". For example, if you've lived in the tropics all of your life, you may have
seen pictures of frozen lakes/rivers, but actually learning to walk on one requires lots of trial and error. I
remember my first experience with Florida marshland. You never know how deep your next step will be.
And, of course, people are forever running into clean glass walls.
Spaces which have unfamiliar color/depth properties are also "alien". For example, some of the spaces in
George Lucas‘ film THX1138 are entirely greyish-white, with all furniture, walls, floors, etc. the same
color. It would be very difficult to get one's bearings in such a space since we expect our environment to
have certain gradations in color. Residents of desert/arctic/deep-forest environments learn to differentiate
subtle variations in color, texture, mass, etc. that give them clues as the nature of the environment .
In drams the major use of alien space is likely to be spaces containing actual aliens –– sci-fi/ fantasy
scenarios which take place in extraterrestrial worlds, interstellar space, and unusual primeval settings.
Since such worlds are likely to have space navigation properties substantially different than earth (gravity,
mass, sunlight, weather, vegetation, and any number of other differences), quite a bit of pre-testing will
have to take place to make sure that the target dram audience is willing to put up with the amount of
training/ accommodation necessary to participate in the world. Although teen/pre-teen travelers might
enjoy throwing up a few times as a rite of passage to get the hang of moving through "CoasterWorld",
less dedicated travelers won't get past the trial-demo.
Movement apparatus will likely need to be customized for alien space, specialized environmental controls
may have to be added, and the possibility of traveler injury is very, very real –– so biomonitoring, extra-
guardian angels, and legal warnings and contracts may need to be laid on .
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Specialized Navigation in Drams

Certain drams are likely to allow travelers to "jump" to other locations or time periods, and to "dive" into
spaces, objects, or characters.
Jumps. Drams where travelers will normally be "ghosting" and where there are several possible dram
settings are likely to build in jumps as a part of the traveler experience. For example, if traveler Sid gets
bored watching the characters Martha and Kyo hunting for archaeological sites in Malaysia, he can signal
to dram control and indicate that he'd like to go to Kyo's family home in Singapore. Flash. He's there. Or
maybe Sid wants to see what was happening in the jungle before Martha and Kyo starting hunting today.
He calls up an in-dram set of time controls. Flash. He's in the same spot 8 hours ago .
Can he interact with them eight hours ago? Tricky. A very sophisticated dram would allow the story to be
―cloned‖ at a particular point in time, with travelers and story characters translated into automated
characters, so that visiting travelers can interact with them. This could get a bit confusing, so
controls/panels which specify storytime are important.
Dives. I have mentioned dives as a way of going directly into a character‘s past life. A somewhat more
obscure use of "dives" comes out of the saying "I wish I could've been a fly on the wall when...". The
traveler is placed inside an object or surface and can observe what is happening over periods of time. For
example, a traveler may admire a vase in the corner of a dram house. She sees that she is permitted to
"dive" the vase, and moves into it, perhaps moving back in time all the way until the vase is created,
observing the potter, the firing, and subsequent owners –– all in flash-forward mode.
Of course dives assume substantial dram scenario resources. Initially only certain dram characters/ objects
are likely to be "dive-friendly", but the potential overlap between entertainment and educational uses of
drams may make the sort of pottery-dive I described above much more common than one might expect.

Movement Memory

The ability to navigate various spaces, and to recognize when a particular surface is able to hold our
weight, is an important part of early learning. Which kinds of spaces we learn to navigate depends on our
physical location/culture. For example, a city dweller learns about traffic lights, crosswalks, dangerous
areas, etc. A forest dweller needs to pick out landmarks, pathways, and sky signs. Relatively few humans
are able to remember extremely complex movement maps. This is what astounds us about the ancient
Polynesians' ability to canoe for thousands of miles without getting lost. We best understand how to get in
and out of spaces that are within our immediate view. This makes it important for us to have external
maps –– especially in unfamiliar environments. Even with guide maps, ever-nomadic homo sapiens might
be better named "homo-i'm-lost-again".
Since individuals will manifest movement variations within these complex, culturally defined movement
patterns, and since drams will ordinarily try to make travelers‘ involvement as painless as possible, it
makes sense to implement character-movement-translators, where individual movements or gestures by
travelers are translated into appropriate form in the virtual world (―simchar‖). For example, it takes quite
a bit of practice to walk on the deck of a ship in even moderately calm ocean waters. Unless the dram
‗SeafaringDays‘ is being used as a simulator to train sailors, it will be useful to allow a traveler to walk
―normally‖ on that multi-directional simulator and to have their movement ―translated‖ into the crab-walk
of a deckhand. If traveler Glenda makes a rude gesture to the FirstMate, it can either be translated into a
culturally appropriate rude gesture, or omitted altogether if the character Glenda is playing would never,
ever, do such a thing.
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Interacting With Others in Space

The distance at which we interact with others has to do with the nature of our relationship with them, with
the cultural distance requirements for private, intimate, conversational, shout, and observation space, and
with how we are feeling (physically and about them) at the moment. For example, it isn't uncommon to
walk shoulder-to-shoulder with total strangers on a crowded New York City street, whereas in a London
suburb somewhat more distance is required by convention. If we've just had an argument with someone
normally allowed into our intimate space, we may alter that arrangement and only interact with them at
conversational (or shout) distances.
Each of the following people-movement-interaction skills requires considerable mastery of eye-hand-
body part co-ordination, and calls for use of a movement translation system such as ―simchar‖.

Key Interactions

Avoiding Others. An important skill that we learn while we are mastering crawling/walking is the ability
to not walk into someone else as we are moving along –– unless we are doing it deliberately (big hug,
tackling). This ability is actually a fairly complex set of skills, since we need to estimate our speed, the
speed of the other person(s), and the amount of available passing space on either side. We then to need to
adjust our stride, direction, and even our orientation (say, turning sideways to fit through a doorway) to
prevent contact.
When we‘re ghosting a dram, the characters will be unaware of our presence, so avoiding them isn‘t an
issue. However, in the interest of social norms it seems to me that it would be simpler to make a rule that,
except for specialized environment –– e.g. ―GhostWorld‖ –– travelers shouldn‘t be able to go through
characters or other travelers. This requires the establishment of buffer zones that extend from the center of
a virtual character to somewhere between their ―intimate‖ to ―conversation‖ zones. These zones should be
modifiable to handle natural crowding situations, of course, but in normal circumstances, travelers should
simply slide around other characters.
Successfully dodging and weaving around characters in a ―normal‖ fashion is somewhat more difficult,
since equipment-to-dram communication has lag time. This calls for some form of automated character
movement, such as the ―simchar‖ translator language, where the traveler –– acting as a character or using
a virtual persona double –– signals the desire to move to a particular place, and the character body takes
over, either crossing the distance in typical fashion, or at least smoothing the movement .
In public drams, rules will need to be established to prevent traveler overcrowding. Even in ghost-only
drams, the number of travelers visible in a particular space will need to be kept to a minimum. Early
online graphical chat worlds handled this problem by creating virtual groups of visitors. The tricky bit
comes when a group of travelers wants to stay together in a complex international dram environment.
Co-Operative Movement. Another quite sophisticated set of skills is used when one or more people are
navigating through a group of obstacles. We have to rapidly estimate the gait of our companions, their
distance from us, their trajectory (if, for example, someone is in front of us and moving on an angle), and
must generate our usual obstacle avoidance map at the same time. In some cultures our physical position
within a moving group may also be rigidly determined by status, age, etc. –– so that we must be careful to
maintain our proper position in the group.
This sort of movement is so sophisticated –– and so physically habituated –– that it practically begs for
―simchar‖ translation, especially when travelers are acting as story characters. Traveler to traveler co-
operative movement could be more forgiving, since travelers will all be using some sort of apparatus, but
there is likely to be a pecking order based on the sophistication of movement. This means that techniques
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such as virtual menus, voice commands, and indicated gesture will be useful, but seamless co-operative
movement –– such as that provided by tandem-links (two or more people floating along as though they
were attached) or use of ―simchar‖ –– are likely to be more desirable.
Conversing with Others. We spend a great deal of our lives talking –– it is our major addiction. The
distance we place ourselves from others while we are talking and the angle we face our bodies in relation
to them is determined by our relationship, cultural norms, and our current emotional state. For example,
one of the greatest difficulties tourists have is in accommodating themselves to cultures with distinctly
different conversation space requirements. If the tourists come from cultures where people huddle
together, speak softly, and never ever touch each other without permission, they may feel "attacked" or
become exhausted while visiting countries where people shout their way through conversations and
always seem to be patting, poking, and thumping each other.
Help can be provided in drams by activating culturally specific body filter buffer zones around characters
and around the virtual doubles of travelers.
Touching Others. In situations where relationship/cultural norms permit, we touch others in various
private, intimate, and conversational ways. As you might expect, the parts of the body on which we touch
others, and the nature of our touching (caressing, patting, slapping) are governed by an elaborate set of
rules in most cultures. In some places, kissing or walking hand-in-hand in public is taboo. In some
cultures both men and women friends walk hand in hand. And, of course, there are also different sets of
permissions related to age. Any number of people will pat a child on the head or hold and snuggle a
proffered baby, but wouldn't consider touching an adolescent in the same way.
To be able to touch others in various ways, we have to know not only what is permissible, but how to
touch with appropriate force, stroke length, rhythm, and so forth.
One way or another, touching requires drams to be able to at least determine the exact location of body
parts so that proximity to intimate space is known at all times. The ability to give/ receive touch-pressure
requires sensuit apparatus with limited lag time. Oddly enough, I see the greatest difficulty lying not in
relationship-touching, but in tasks like shopping in a grocery store –– a common occupation where there
is great variation in surfaces and surface tension, and where there might be a great deal of rapid sequential
touching.
Making Movement Mistakes. When we are walking along with others, we are constantly making
adjustments because the movement map we have created at one particular moment might be interrupted
by an unexpected movement by another person, or by the existence of an obstacle that our distance
sensing didn't pick up. If we are walking along talking, there will be ambient visual noise –– in almost
any environment, not just man-made ones –– that may make it difficult to concentrate on the movement
or gestures or others. We either try to guess what they meant by that last nonverbal signal. We are used to
constantly making mistakes/adjustments and find "perfect" behavior slightly incongruous.
Very sophisticated drams will need to use some form of ―simchar‖ to approximate individual movement
behavior because most other methods are likely to produce jerky, inconsistent, or zombie-like movement.
Spatial Interaction Memory. Because it's a lot easier to make adjustments "on the fly", most of us don't
tend to store detailed memories of how people move, but we do remember what they look like ––
especially the face, which has wired-in significance for us. We can often identify the large motor
movement patterns of a well known person at a great distance –– an extremely useful survival skill.
We also tend to notice differences in the spatial orientation people take toward us. For example, in some
cultures, someone with whom we have a close relationship normally stands right in front of us to talk. If
they change that stance to a slight angle, we "sense" that something is different. In many cultures
youngsters moving into sexual phases spend endless amounts of time discussing these sorts of
interactions and their significance.
Travelers will need to be trained to recognize the non-verbal gesture, movement and facial expression of
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characters with whom they are supposed to have longstanding relationships. This is a bit like a national
intelligence service getting an imposter ready to send to another country .
One feature of ―simchar‖ could be a system which identifies the meaning of a particular character gesture
in the context of the relationship between character and traveler and signals that on a virtual or auditory
display (as filtered through both characters relatively ability to perceive such signals), but given our
natural immersion in the minutiae of nonverbal communication it might be just as easy for the story guide
to train travelers to recognize the most important behaviors.

Storytelling Uses of Spaces in Drams

Introduction

1) Ellen Hood took lunch to her grandmother‘s house. She had to walk through the rain.
2) Little Red Riding Hood filled her basket with goodies and bundled up against the driving rain
before taking the long journey through the deep dark forest to her invalid grandmother‘s isolated
cabin.
The difference between recitation of events and telling stories about events is that the storyteller carefully
selects physical elements which provide the story visitor with at least some of the following information:
- Where the story takes place (socially, geographically, historically)
- Who the characters are (personality, class, culture, wealth, occupation, habits)
- How the visitor should expect the story to proceed (style, story genre)
These elements help arouse the interest of the story visitor and keep them engaged by satisfying the
human need to have key sensory details of physical surroundings available at all times.
Places and spaces are also used to guide the visitor through the storyworld, by narrowing possible story
locations, by setting mood and tone, by guiding moment-to-moment emotional interaction, and, not least,
by activating the imagination of the story visitor.

Providing Story Information

Where the Story Takes Place. Since humans are basically nomadic, we are constantly evaluating our
physical location. ―Do I know where I am?‖ ―Is this friendly space or unfriendly?‖ ―Can I stay here
long?‖ ―Will I be able to eat/ drink/ bathe/ eliminate here?‖ ―Who are these people? Do I know them?
Will I be able to communicate with or understand them? Will they harm me?‖
Because modern stories are rarely set in locales where story visitors live, we have a natural inclination to
want to know the ―lay of the land‖ as quickly as possible. We‘re all familiar with the sequence of camera
shots which introduces many films –– usually under the opening credits. Often the sequence begins with
an outdoor shot to establish the approximate geographic location: ―a windswept hilly area near the
ocean‖, the historical period: ―autos and clothing of 1940‘s vintage‖, and the social stratum: ―a group of
ramshackle stone cottages with thatched roofs and children running around barefoot in threadbare
clothing‖.
If there is some possibility that the story visitor might get confused, the opening scenes may explicitly
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announce the date and location by showing calendars, posters, and various location identifiers, such as the
signs on civic buildings.
This information acts as a memory trigger which allows us to access at least some things we have learned
about similar times/ places.
In our stone cottage example the story visitor who has some life experience is likely to think: ―It‘s bone
chilling cold on the coast and the cottages don‘t look as though they have central heating. Those houses
are pretty poorly maintained and there are cows and chickens, so, given that the newspaper that floated by
said ‗1945‘, they are likely to be subsistence farmers or fishermen. It‘s at the end of –– or just after ––
World War II, which means food shortages.‖ All of that can be gleaned from a couple of carefully crafted
paragraphs or a series of five second camera shots.
As the story continues, we receive more and more information of this sort, perhaps moving to new locales
or to a wealthier part of the same district. We gradually become more and more familiar –– if not more
comfortable –– with the physical world of the story. This gives us a head start in understanding characters
and their relationships.
In drams, the story location can be literally anywhere or anywhen. The difference is that travelers may be
expected to understand the meaning of that sheaf of wheat over the door or the identities of those happy,
heavy people in the photograph taped to the refrigerator –– especially if travelers are playing characters
who live in the space. This situation calls for advance training –– ala espionage –– and/or on-the-spot
information provided by the story guide .
The amount of information travelers need to know depends largely on the nature of the dram. If it‘s a
mystery and you‘re supposed to be a minister holding a salon in your parsonage, the various character
translation utilities (charan, simchar, etc.) can modify your speech and movement to mimic those of the
parson, but if you don‘t know the contents of your own living room, you‘ll be very suspicious, indeed!
This situation is likely to call for specialized techniques, such as spaces that ―tell‖ travelers their own
history in relation to the traveler. ―Ah, ye bin here since ye war a wee bairn,‖ said the door. ―Many‘s the
time you wiped your filthy hands on my doorknob.‖
To be able to acquire this information, the traveler will have to either freeze the action of the dram, put
the character persona on ―automatic‖ while the traveler roots through information, or have the traveler
slip off to consult that data kiosk hidden in the outhouse. The more complex and interactive the dram, and
the more travelers are involved ―real time‖, the better pre-dram training begins to look.
Who the Characters Are. Once we know, in general, where we are, the storyteller gradually introduces
us to characters .
Background characters are functionally part of the setting, since they aren‘t actively involved in
the story, but their clothing, mode of transportation and personal objects –– watches, radios,
jewelry, etc. –– give us immediate clues as to time and place.
Major & Secondary characters are introduced in some detail. That could be done by having
them introduce themselves, but since the storyteller is usually taking an ―outside party‖ point of
view, the convention is to show these characters interacting in their natural habitat, which
includes private [homes/rooms], occupational, and play spaces. In each of these situations,
clothing, furniture, and various objects –– including photographs –– help us build a portrait of the
character –– as filtered through our own knowledge, opinions, and biases. We also get important
tidbits of information about a character‘s personal grooming, hygiene, and eating habits. For
example, a room whose walls are filled floor to ceiling with racks of shined porcelain figurines,
but whose tables and floor are littered with empty food boxes, old newspapers, and dirty socks
conveys a very particular impression about the occupant.
The story visitor takes in this information and decides how they ―feel‖ about the character. The room I
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just described could be the dwelling of a reclusive collector, or in a comedy, a room used to store ghastly
presents sent by a character‘s relatives and admirers .
Master storytellers in all story forms love to play with story visitors‘ expectations. They set up a physical
situation that seems to imply certain character traits and then deny our expectations. The elegant
Edwardian drawing room. The butler. The overdressed gentleman who enters and says, ―My word,
Richard, Aunt Agatha‘s digs are ghastly, aren‘t they?‖ A risky business, since our trust is at stake, but the
masters always seem to know just how much nose-tweaking we will tolerate.
In drams, a great deal of character information beyond what we would normally be expected to pick up
from character surroundings can be acquired just like space information –– by memorizing it or looking it
up. Once again, this will be crucial where the traveler is playing a role which demands familiarity. ―Did
Hiroshi take his calligraphy pen with him?‖ ―His what?‖ The wonderful advantage of drams is that except
for situations where not knowing certain information might make a traveler seem sick or crazy, it is
always possible to ask another character. ―What‘s all that colored sand in the courtyard?‖ ―You mean the
sand meditation?‖ ―Uh, yeah, that‘s the one.‖
What the Story Visitor Expects. The way space, objects, furniture and clothing are described / presented
gives us quite a lot of information about how the storyteller is likely to proceed in telling the tale. It all
depends on our familiarity with spaces. For example, a story that opens with wide vistas, wagon trains,
and horsemen carrying rifles at the ready tells us that at least a part of the story will be a ―Western‖, that it
will probably be serious in tone, and that a particular range of characters –– settlers, sheriff, outlaws ––
will be presented. If we have a fair amount of experience with similar stories, we will immediately think,
―OK. Now how is this going to be different than other stories of this type that I‘ve experienced.‖ The
experienced story visitor becomes a story critic.
Or, let‘s say that the story opens with a detailed description/examination of the objects in a room. If we
know something about the cost/rarity of objects, we will be able to immediately predict that the Rolex
watch, the gold-plated barometer, the silk scarf, and the exquisitely crafted hardwood models of early
aircraft belong to a wealthy individual who has a serious interest in flying.
Those story visitors who have had a great deal of exposure to film and TV will have visited thousands of
places covering a vast range of cultures, locations, classes, and historical periods. Although many of these
spaces may not be historically or physically ―accurate‖, they are likely to be close enough to equip the
visitor with a vocabulary of information which they can apply to story experiences.
Storytellers, for their part, expect their target story visitors to have a certain space/object vocabulary, and
use that information to reduce the amount of description. For example, we all know what a wall is, and it
is the rare story visitor who hasn‘t seen reproductions of a castle and a moat. If the storyteller then
describes the wall as ―a decaying fortress wall still embedded with the arrow tips and blood of medieval
invaders‖, we can replay scenes we have read/ seen of this sort of battle and approach the place with grim
expectations indeed. If the storyteller in this case were to add, ―...but so overgrown with brilliant blue and
pink flowers that it seemed as though a field had decided to lift itself skyward to greet the warm June
sun,‖ a very different experience is given: growth out of decay and a new beginning.
Unfortunately, storytellers are also tempted to make use of knowledge that story visitors have acquired
from highly slanted film and TV stereotypes. For example, war news correspondents can be tempted –– or
instructed –– to relate their stories in front of bombed-out buildings, with the sound of gunfire in the
background. Now, it may happen that the destroyed building is a few feet from an active outdoor café,
and the gunfire is ―accidentally‖ produced by the correspondent‘s local guide, but the home audience,
seeing these images night after night, come to identify that part of the world with destruction.
In this way, story places, spaces, and objects act as metaphors that trigger our spatial vocabulary and our
emotional memory and set us on a particular path through the story.
In drams, we are surrounded by the storyworld. Depending on the sophistication of our equipment, we
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may be able to smell that mound of rotting apples behind the Three Little Pigs compound. We might be
able to mount Saladin‘s horse, or feel the heat coming off thatched roofs in early desert civilizations.
Because of this sense of immediacy, the style, color, and lighting of spaces will be important tools to
convey story genre. For example, the dram developer, playing Mother Nature, can make sure that the
weather is always bleak around the gothic mansion; that the shadows are always a little longer than seems
quite natural; that the rooms are oddly, and sometimes eerily, shaped. In BallyWoodVillage, the walls are
brightly lit, and many rooms are large enough to accommodate dance numbers.

Guiding Story Flow

Narrowing Possible Story Locations. Normally, storytellers want to limit the number of story locales so
that:
- too much of the story isn‘t taken up with description/scene setting, which may bore many story
visitors
- the focus of the story can be on characters and their normal living space--which is a limited set of
locations
- story visitors are able to follow the story without getting confused
- the budget can be controlled for acted out stories
An extreme example of physical containment can be found in the made-for-TV sci-fi series ―Dr Who‖,
which used the barely disguised corridors and parking lot of the TV studio for most set locations. U.S. TV
series have used the same Los Angeles street scenes so often that scholars can present retrospectives of
particular locations.
Another, less logistical reason for containing characters is to provide them with a reason for spending
more time interacting with each other. In murder stories where characters are expected to have very
limited time for interaction, elaborate reasons are often constructed to allow them to interact. The stalled
elevator, train or aircraft, the trip by cruise ship, are all devices to force characters to be together. Horror
stories often go to elaborate lengths to limit the plot-based options of characters because it allows them to
build tension –– and provide scream release –– in a 27 room decaying mansion. A lot more effective than
a sunny day at the beach.
Spaces and objects are often used to inform us about a character‘s personality or beliefs by rapidly
building a portrait that restricts the way we look at a character. For example, the wheelchair-bound
character in a room totally devoid of personal detail suggests to us that either the character is in an
institution of some sort, has a disability that prevents external focus, or is desperately poor. If the room is
filled with light, bright colors, playful mementos, plants and pets, the character‘s history seems to be an
emotionally full one.
A character tossing and catching a baseball against a background of athletic trophies says ―athlete‖ to us.
We filter the information through our own beliefs, experiences, and biases and limit our expectations
about how the character will behave.
In drams, the need to physically contain characters is fairly obvious. Travelers who may feel, or who
may be misled by advertising into believing that they have unlimited access to the entire storyworld, need
to have some advance notice of the extent and nature of the spaces they will be visiting. drams which are
also games or mysteries will need to give travelers more detailed information about spaces. I‘d expect to
see something like a ―room scanner‖ as part of travelers virtual toolkit so they can get multiple views of
storyworlds, including sky shots, room maps –– marked with permissions, possibilities and problems ––
and some way of telling which doors, windows, furniture and other objects can be used or investigated.
This might be as simple as an overlay which highlights permissions, or as complex as an ongoing virtual-
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video narrative about the space, where the traveler has to make informed decisions about particular
spaces. ―The last twenty-seven travelers to go through that door never returned.‖ Does this mean that they
were ejected from the dram, lost lots of points, or moved into an exciting new space from which they
never wanted to return?
Another important form of spatial containment has to do with shunting travelers to particular spaces so
that specific story events can occur. If, for example, it takes fifteen minutes to climb the stairs to the
mountaintop fortress, dram control knows how much time it has available to prepare characters and
spaces. If that bale of hay is dropped in the middle of the road, the monks will have to either walk through
a ditch full of leeches, or take the long route past the house of the warlord .
The layout of the interior of a building can be used in this way. A key door might be locked. That corridor
might just have been polished. A character with claustrophobia might have to crawl under a building.
Setting Mood and Tone. Our internal state plays a significant role in the progress of a story, and
storytellers have always tried to manipulate that state to their advantage. For example, in a horror novel
we may know that the two-headed axe murderer is lurking in the kitchen, but character Jane Sweet comes
downstairs to make tea anyway. The author may tease us by stretching out her trip. She reaches the
bottom of the stairs and starts to open the kitchen door, which seems to stick. But just then the morning
post is shoved through the slot in the front door and she goes to investigate.
In film, both place and background music establish the emotional tone for the audience. The sudden storm
on the prairie, the narrow confines of a clock tower; a beach scene about to be disrupted by Jaws.
In drams, the 3D reality of a space is a major advantage of the story form. This means that mood and
tone have to be approached with some subtlety –– carefully integrating elements into ―natural‖ settings,
ala set decoration. Sources of ambient light and the distribution of light reflected from surfaces can be
quite useful in conveying tone. Two rooms exactly the same size, with the same furniture, will ―feel‖
entirely different if all of the surfaces in one room seem dull and lifeless, if major light sources are glaring
and if the furniture itself seems oddly arranged. The room says ―the person who lives here isn‘t very
visual‖.
Ambient sound can also be used instead of the movie soundtrack. Wind whistling around a house and
through small cracks in a window. The creaking of floorboards as the traveler walks from room to room.
Peculiar, unidentifiable noises coming from outside.
And, of course, touch and smell will be available in certain drams. The visually lovely room that smells of
decay; the slight chill that seems to permeate the upstairs hallway.
Activating Visitor Imagination. Stories take us places we‘ll never be, allow us to participate in events
that very few people ever see, and open up the worlds of possibility and impossibility. In written story
forms a single phrase can get the imagination working overtime. ―The sky rent open and wraith-like
creatures flew to earth, snatched up the princess, and turned the king and queen into toads.‖ ―Would
opening the pharaoh‘s tomb destroy the mummy and its contents?‖ ―The rulers of twenty seven nations
knelt together and asked forgiveness of the mothers whose children had died in the conflict.‖
Acted-out story forms like films need to show us these events in some concrete way, and while they
might not match our own internal images of ―the king and queen turning into toads‖, the creative minds of
visual storytellers can often top our expectations. Did your toads you just imagined bicker among
themselves and eat chocolate ice cream as they fell from the sky?
In drams, the storyteller/developer has the worlds of touch and taste and smell to add to the mix. Add the
ability to hitch, surf, and dive characters (and their dreams), and you have a potent aid to the active
imagination.
Because drams are also likely to track traveler likes, dislikes, and behavior over a long period of time, the
current state of traveler imagination and toleration for novelty and surprise can be estimated and
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accommodated. For example, Traveler Jean-Marie has actively participated GuggenheimTreasures for a
couple of years. On one particular day, she seems a bit depressed about something. The program senses
this and provides her with an unopened storage room. ―There‘s a room behind the climate-control unit?‖
Drams can also be used as simulations of possible events, and this opens up wonderful avenues of
exploration. If we were to visualize a geometry created by a twelve legged species, what would it look
like? What would be the ramifications if our geometries and theirs intersected? All of this could be made
part of a dramatic scenario.
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Properties of Dram Objects

Introduction

We walk into and out of spaces. We are surrounded and covered by them. They mark our boundaries,
territories, and aspirations .
Objects are handled, desired, possessed by us. We keep them in our houses, offices, and pockets. We
grow them on our windowsills .
That‘s right. Grow. For the purpose of Virtual Drama, I define an object as any non-character thing that
can be readily moved by a person, but doesn‘t move from place to place by itself. That includes house
plants.
The purpose of this somewhat peculiar definition is to be able to identify which dram ―entities‖ need to
have advanced levels of independence (communication skills and intelligence). Here‘s a stab at some
distinctions:
- Sentient characters communicate directly with humans, even if they look like rocks or teapots.
At least potentially, they move by themselves. (A talking wall doesn‘t move, but it ―might‖. Who
knows.)
- Non-sentient characters don‘t communicate with humans, but do move by themselves. I use the
word ―sentient‖ to distinguish non-earth intelligent beings who can‘t (or don‘t want to)
communicate with humans (and who thus are characters) from ―animals‖ who communicate with
each other in some way but can‘t communicate with humans. This distinction is made necessary by
the strong interest in science fiction and fantasy among travelers who are likely to be early adopters
and developers of Virtual Drama.
For example, Blech Yorrk, a spiny-toad-looking ball of light, and his friends run a space station.
They have no desire to communicate with humans –– perhaps including dram travelers –– but they
are clearly ―sentient‖, and ―could‖ potentially communicate. They also move by themselves, or
have some form of transportation.
- Spaces don‘t communicate with humans or move by themselves, and can‘t be readily carried
around by humans. This includes natural phenomena which act as settings –– such as caves and
mountains and forests. However, a lighting sconce can be removed from a wall; a brick can come
loose from a walkway; a small tree can be dug up and moved. Ponds and oceans are spaces which
move, but their movement tends to be determined by external forces, such as the moon, wind, or
gravity.
A space that does talk to humans is, by this definition, a character.
- Objects don‘t communicate with humans but can be carried around by us –– like rocks and
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cactus leaves and pens. dram objects may well need to communicate their own physical state to
dram control, dram rooms, other objects, or a traveler‘s body filter, but that is a ―state-language‖,
like ―simchar‖, not ordinary human communication .
Because we have such a close relationship with objects, we tend to pay more attention to their physical
presence and activity. We‘ve spent the greater part of our early years learning how cups, utensils, pens,
food, books and balls work. We are object experts to the point where, like great athletes and performers,
we only really notice what we‘re doing with them when something seems ―wrong‖.

Sensing Objects

We look at spaces and sometimes touch their surfaces, as when we walk on them. Our contact with them
is remote .
Objects can be handled, turned this way and that, shaken and dropped. There is a much more intimate
relationship between a traveler and an object. This means that the senses used to perceive objects in drams
must be particularly well developed.
Seeing Objects. When we walk into a space we scan the contents looking for something interesting,
unusual, or out of place. If we are very familiar with the space, we may be looking for some specific
object –– such as our work desk and telephone. We‘ve spent the greater part of our lives identifying the
names of objects ―by sight‖. We recognize their shape, the materials used in them, and how to use them.
This chair has holes in its back and seat, but we estimate that it is OK to sit on it because we recognize the
design. The little objects with the holes in their tops are salt shakers. We may have to pour out a little of
the contents, or sniff at them, to figure out what they contain.
Our ability to focus and refocus our eyes and to rotate our heads in a wide arc allows us to perform area
scans for large objects and to then pinpoint smaller objects. At a subconscious level, the names and
properties of all these objects are clicking away in our brains, which is one reason many people get
―worn-out‖ just walking through a large retail mall. Lots of colorful objects are quite deliberately calling
out for our attention.
A good way to test this search ability is to go into a room and look for a specific object. You will first
look in ―logical‖ places, say on a flat surface if you are looking for a plate, or in a closet or refrigerator if
you are hunting for food.
We also pay particular attention to objects which have moving parts –– mechanical or electronic –– and to
tools which extend our range of activity in some way. Our species spent a very long time learning how to
create these objects.
In drams, travelers will be looking to explore the local environment, which includes furniture and the
myriad objects that inhabit our houses, and the plants, rocks, automobiles and garden gnomes of outdoor
spaces. By adolescence we already know the appropriate size, shape, material composition and surface
texture of thousands of these objects (heaven help us), and the dram environment must accommodate that
knowledge.
Most of us also have excellent depth perception, and spend inordinate amounts of child-time learning that
what appears to be tiny blobs on the counter top in the next room is actually cookies piled on a plate.
Some of this ability is wired in, of course, but it‘s likely to be no less of a headache for dram developers.
Until travelers can be plugged into drams directly, they will need to use apparatus such as sensing glasses,
bodyclouds and body filters. These devices must allow objects to maintain their appearance even in
travelers‘ peripheral vision and during rapid head or eye movement. Of course, it will help if the objects
themselves have a certain amount of intelligence.
Touching Objects. We touch objects so that we can pick them up to look at them, to feel their texture, or
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to move them from one place to another. Our sense of touch is extremely important to the development of
our species since tool handling and other tasks requiring fine motor co-ordination rely not only on the
ability of our hands to manipulate objects, but also on the pressure, texture, and other sensitivities which
allow us to feel temperature, shape, size, and the all important edges of things.
When we touch objects that we aren‘t going to move, we are normally feeling their texture, as when we
feel the surface of a dining table to see if there are any crumbs left on it, or when we absentmindedly
touch surfaces in our immediate vicinity .
Our hands are constantly roaming over surfaces –– including our clothing, our own skin and hair and
nearby surfaces –– in stroking motions which look a lot like grooming .
As we move objects, we either feel their texture, size and edges as part of the process of making sure that
we don‘t drop them, or, if we have picked up the object to examine it, we are likely to compare our visual
and tactile senses. ―Is this box made of wood or plastic?‖ ―This stone is much lighter than it looks.‖
The rest of our body is constantly bumping against things, but since we often wear clothing, the only time
this form of touching tends to take focus is when we feel wind, rain or other natural elements against our
skin, or the texture of furniture we sit or lie on.
For drams, touch is a particular problem for the developer because of the level of sensitivity required. It
seems to call for solutions where minute pressure gradients are applied to the fingers, or where objects are
physically represented in some way in the space through micro-force-field or nano-object approaches.
The bubblesuit I described above allows for multiple levels of contact sensitivity and pressure, so that
travelers could put their hands into a container of water, press against a sponge and feel an embedded coin
as it presses against the bottom of the container. Quite a challenge.
Manipulating Objects. When we move objects or turn them around in our hands to examine them, we
use fine muscle co-ordination that responds to the weight, size, shape, and texture of the object. If we are
carrying a heavy object, a number of large muscles will be involved. If we are examining a small piece of
jewelry, we will mostly use hand, arm, neck and head muscles.
Part of this muscle sense allows us to feel the softness/hardness of surfaces, as we press against them to
see how much they will ―give‖.
Approximating the weight of objects means that we will either have to simulate the objects themselves in
space –– via force fields or nano-assembly –– or use coverings such as bubblesuits, which allow for
different levels of pressure sensitivity.
In drams, travelers should be allowed to modify the level of sensitivity. It‘s one thing to walk across the
surface of the moon and pick up a moon rock and quite another to work all day as a virtual geologist.
Hearing Objects. We don‘t ordinarily associate objects other than musical instruments or transmission
media such as radio, TV, etc) with sound, but sounds like a fork touching a plate, or a drawer being
opened can be important parts of the ambient sound of a space.
Sounds are emitted as objects touch each other, and so the weight and material of the objects has to be
known before the sound can be produced. Since there is a distinct difference between the sounds of, say, a
glass being dropped in the next room and the same glass being dropped on the floor next to us, and since
travelers or travelers-being-characters will have widely different hearing ability profiles anyway, sound is
another area where some combination of a body filter and intelligent objects makes sense –– especially
where realism is important.
For example, if the glass knows its own size, shape, weight, response to gravity, and how it will break up
on a floor of a given composition, and if the floor and surrounding furniture know their own properties,
then the glass, the floor, and the furniture can pass information to the room, which provides a running
sensory image to the traveler‘s body filter, which then interprets the sound based on the traveler‘s position
in the room, hearing profile, pre-occupation, etc.
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Motion in Objects

I defined the word ―object‖ widely enough so that things that don‘t communicate with humans, can be
carried, and don‘t move ―of their own volition‖ qualify as objects. Objects also have ―intrinsic motion‖ ––
the workings of a clock or a computer chip or the cellular processes of plants .
Above all, objects, including those with intrinsic motion, are portable. They can be lifted, carried, rolled,
even put in your pocket.
Intrinsic Motion. ―The wooden wind-up toy dalmatian clattered across the brick pavement and into the
bushes, which blew this way and that in the summer wind.‖ The toy dog is man-made, which means that
its properties can be predetermined by some sort of engineering simulation. The only difference between
the toy dog and a glass of water from this point of view is that the toy has a number of moving parts.
Normally, the parts can‘t be seen, so the dog is essentially a clumsy character without communication
skills. Where the notion of intrinsic motion becomes important is where the workings of the object can be
observed (a toy being repaired or a plant growing), or where the object‘s motion can cause events, as in
the situation where the toy dog has activated by itself and fallen onto a busy stairway.
Living Objects such as plants can be quite a bit more complex in their intrinsic motion than mechanical
objects since they tend to have multiple pieces that are easily set into motion, grow or shrink, or break off
altogether and fly about. During windy times, the parts of many plants also interweave with each other,
and rain (or watering) produces entirely different effects. Pieces of plants are regularly carried for large
distances by the air .
In drams, we could have individual pieces of living objects act separately and simply respond to current
circumstances, or, we could think of them as living paintings, and approximate movement. Certainly we
would want to take the latter approach in representing a prairie or a savannah or any densely planted area.
Our advantage is that very few people pay close enough attention to the specific activity of plants to
notice small differences. However, travelers will notice if tall grasses don‘t bend in the wind, or if they
don‘t bend the same way in the wind.
Since living objects are excellent subjects for immersive modeling for educational and occupational
purposes (agriculture, horticulture, gardening, ecology), I suspect that quite sophisticated representations
will be available for use by dram developers.
Portable Motion. Most objects only move if someone –– or some force of nature –– moves them.
Removing nature from the equation means, in a dram, that the object is being moved by a traveler or a
character, and that the size, shape, weight, mass, etc. of the object is an important part of the moving
process.
When characters or travelers move an object, they handle it. Since there are different sensory handling
effects for various sizes of objects, I‘ve grouped portable object motion into four categories: stationary,
liftable, portable, and pocketable.
Stationary Objects are the refrigerator, those street lamps, or that gigantic display screen you
bought on a whim. They can be moved, but usually require some sort of equipment. You‘ll note
that often these stationary object have moving parts, and may well contain other objects. In
drams, the idea of opening a series of drawers which contain numerous objects doesn‘t seem
complex, but just think of the situation where objects (say, silverware) have been arranged in a
particular way by one character, and another character disagrees with the arrangement. Every
time the drawers of a stationary object are opened, it becomes important to exactly define the
location of the smaller objects contained in each drawer.
Liftable Objects can be carried by 1-2 people, but aren‘t likely to be carried for any distance.
Furniture, packing cases, or that solid oak giraffe coffee table you had shipped from Nairobi falls
into the category. Because these objects can be lifted, their physical characteristics must be
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accurately communicated to dram apparatus such as exoskeletons or bubblesuits which will need
to simulate weight, pressure, and edge effects.
Portable Objects we regularly carry from place to place: dishes, stationery, clothing, and so
forth. We are likely to handle these objects fairly frequently, and so their surface texture and edge
details are extremely important. Portable objects can also be thrown or dropped, so their air
resistance properties and ―smashability‖ need to be carefully modeled. We are also more likely to
take portable objects apart into their constituent pieces –– the developer‘s lag time nightmare.
Pocketable Objects, such as coins, combs, wallets, etc. will be handled frequently and require
detailed modeling of handling characteristics, since they may need to be identified by travelers
using touch alone.
The detail in pocketable objects, such as ID Cards, or in portable objects like books needs to be
rapidly scalable, so that, for example, a page which is turned displays the proper text information,
or the ID Card pulled out of a wallet displays a gruesome, but accurate character photograph with
a minimum of delay.

Interaction Between Travelers and Dram Objects

If travelers are permitted to handle dram objects, they will. The nature of that interaction to some extent
determines the function and design of the objects themselves. A crucial aspect of this interaction is
believability –– meaning that travelers mustn‘t think ―I‘m holding a cartoon towel in my hands. Pretty
realistic.‖
A second important factor is how often people are likely to interact with an object and the intimacy of that
interaction: public, shared, or private.

The Perceived Reality of Objects

We can spend a great deal of time modeling and simulating various objects and their movement and still
have dram story environments rejected by travelers.
It is the co-ordination of the various sensory attributes of objects that makes them seem ―real‖ to us. If the
lamp on the table is semi-transparent at a distance; if the virtual salad doesn‘t cut properly with knife and
fork; if the sofa texture is ―stringy‖, our built-in, highly evolved reality detectors will start to flash a
warning signal: ―Not real! Watch out!‖ Here are some examples:
You enter the apartment of a virtual friend. You look at the familiar furniture –– an odd, comfortable
collection of styles and periods, with books strewn everywhere, knickknacks from various adventures in
unlikely places, homespun curtains blowing gently in the breeze from the open window.
You are entering a place you are quite familiar with. You expect your friend‘s apartment to look a
particular way. Over a period of time you have talked about the things in the space; perhaps you have
gone with her to buy those things at virtual village shops. You have touched many of the things in the
space, not consciously, but in the course of a friendship. The comfortable clutter of objects, their color
and texture, all reflect the personality of your friend .
If you help your friend move the furniture and it floats a bit above the floor. If you drop a small object
and it bounces when it shouldn‘t. If your friend‘s favorite things have been rearranged without her
realizing it. If any of these things happen, an element of distrust is introduced into the story. Your
conscious mind takes over from the comfort of the unconscious visit.
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You are walking down a street in WestTown. It is hot and muggy, and bits of dust from the street are
swirled into the air and then settle slowly onto the wooden sidewalk. You stop in the road, pick up a
stone, and throw it at the large sign on the side of the stable that closed a year ago. The sign makes a
satisfying wooden ―plunking‖ sound as the stone hits it.
Dram developers searching for historical accuracy have their work cut out for them. Our mental image of
particular periods and parts of the world has been so colored by fictional presentations –– especially films
and television –– that the real events may seem drab and colorless in comparison. One way to help
travelers move into real spaces is to provide them with ―bridge objects‖, objects which transcend time
periods like the rock and the sign in the above example. The sound and smell of horses, the sight of a
wagon being loaded with provisions. Washing hanging on a line. All of these objects help orient us to a
place which, in this case, might turn out to be remarkably smelly, dusty, hot, and boring.

Levels of Interaction with dram Objects

―Mariah walked down the office corridor, past the investment paintings and the employee‘s bulletin board
to the kitchen, where she opened the refrigerator and took out her lunch. She checked her watch against
the kitchen clock, gave a little gasp, and ran off to the conference room.‖
Although we might be tempted to think ―an object is an object‖, in drams an object might well have to
remember the interaction it has had with travelers, may have to ―expect‖ to interact differently with
various travelers, and might well be asked to change its appearance based on traveler preferences.
Some of these requirements can be estimated from the number of travelers who use particular objects in
the real world, and how frequently they are likely to interact with them.
Public Objects. The paintings in our example are public objects, even though they are owned by
the company. A number of people have access to them. The paintings are considered valuable,
though, and employees will be warned that they are not to touch them. On the other hand, we‘re
likely to expect public objects to stay the same no matter who is traveling through the dram.
People take a dim view of those who walk off with park benches or dig up the azaleas in front of
corporate headquarters.
On the other hand, we often become so used to seeing public objects that we may not pay
attention to them as we pass, and may not even notice if they disappear altogether.
Shared Objects we‘re likely to find in communal spaces of houses, apartments, and so forth. The
office refrigerator will be used by everyone in a particular department. It will be touched and
opened by a number of people, without asking permission.
This means that shared objects need to have high visual and tactile stability, since someone is
likely to notice if some aspect of their appearance or function is ―off‖. ―Didn‘t the refrigerator
open from the left yesterday?‖
Private Objects are owned by an individual and aren‘t likely to be shared. Our combs,
toothbrushes, and underwear fall into this category. These objects are unlikely to be handled by
many different people, but they will be closely attended to by their owner. An exception to this
use of private objects is in puzzle-solving stories such as mysteries, where travelers may be
intensely interested in the private objects of ―suspect‖ characters.
Diveable Objects. A very special case of interaction between travelers and dram objects occurs
when travelers are ―surfing‖ on or diving‖ into an object –– either taking its point of view in the
present, or traveling into its past –– perhaps all the way back to manufacture. Such objects
function like characters and require a separate development process than ordinary dram objects.
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Object Memory

In certain situations objects will need to remember previous interactions with travelers. Certain scenarios
might require that travelers get only one chance to open the family bible, or need to have a defective pair
of pliers. When virtual characters are using/handling objects, it would be useful if objects possessed their
own knowledge of their functioning (object intelligence) –– which they can share with characters and
with the body filters of travelers.

Storytelling Uses of Objects in Drams

Introduction

A Story
―A figure in a hooded fur jacket walked down the office corridor, chuckled at the painting on the far wall
and stopped at the employee bulletin board. She looked up and down the hallway to make sure no one
was looking, pulled a piece of paper out of her tote bag and tacked it up. Then she went to the staff
kitchen, checked the corridor again, and opened the refrigerator door. Out of the bag she took a package
of very expensive coffee and carefully replaced the office quality blend on the shelf. As she hurried back
down the hallway she pulled out a cellphone and spoke just two words: ‗It‘s done.‘‖
The first thing we notice when we enter a space is the space itself –– size, lighting, ground and
architectural details. If the space is indoors, we next pick out the furniture –– period, size, colors, textures
and likely comfort, and then the objects placed around the room: rugs, lamps, vases, knickknacks,
photographs.
All of this ―stuff‖ in the space tells us a great deal about the story and its characters: historical period and
class (or at least wealth), the personality of the owners, and what ―sort‖ of story it is likely to be.
In drams, these objects may also be used to involve the traveler in the story by allowing them to be
handled or ―dived‖, and certain objects –– such as the posted sign in our office scene –– will guide the
traveler in certain directions. For example, the furtiveness of the woman‘s activity suggested some
clandestine activity such as theft, spying, or some other sort of intrigue. In fact, she was only substituting
a better grade of coffee, which signals ―comedy‖ to us.

Dram Objects as Social and Personal Indicators

Even the most communal human societies use some sort of objects to mark distinctions in status, group,
or wealth. Whenever you see a younger generation opting for body markings –– such as the current
interest in tattoos and body piercing –– you can be sure that group distinctions have become a bit too
blurred for mother nature.
Social Indicators
We are trained from a very early age to notice object-based differences in wealth, personality, class and
―taste‖. For example, even the least fashion conscious adult male in our society is likely to recognize a
very expensive suit or a top-of-the-line automobile, just as a forest dweller is likely to pay attention to
clan markings, rare feathers and quality of clothing skins. These social indicators tell us what, in general,
to expect from the characters of the story.
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Historical Period. The most obvious of these indicators is historical period. Even though people
sometimes possess objects from previous historical periods, in general most of our tables and drawers are
filled with things from our own time. This means that in drams, even if travelers aren‘t prepared by the
story guide, they should be able to pick up certain clues about where and when they are just by observing
the ―stuff‖ lying about.
Since a great deal of historical research has been done on the furniture, clothing, food, and necessities of
daily living by generations of collectors, historians, and archaeologists, we know pretty well how to
provide the ―set decoration‖ for various historical periods.
In periods for which there aren‘t many ―daily lives‖ artifacts, a decent guesstimate can be made .
Our problem, in drams, is providing enough object variety within a particular historical community to
satisfy common sense.
For example, even though pre-factory workshops may have produced certain items such as urns, jugs, and
dishware, many other items were created by individual village craftspeople, who prided themselves on the
uniqueness of their designs. This acted both as a sales tool and as a deterrent against theft.
Just when you might think that there wouldn‘t be a great need for stories set, say, in central England in the
Middle Ages, up pops a wonderful series of television episodes based on Elizabeth Peters‘ novels about a
monk-detective. The downside? It‘s one thing to carefully control the story visitor‘s progress through this
austere world in a novel, and quite another to let them loose in the various villages, hamlets and dank
baronial castles of the dram version.
The ―handcraft problem‖ doesn‘t really apply to casual dram travelers, who wouldn‘t recognize different
types of axes, much less detailed craft differences in their design. However, since historical location
drams are likely to do triple duty as entertainment, education, and work, individuality in the crafting of
objects will have to taken into consideration.
One way of dealing with the problem is to simulate likely creation techniques for particular objects and to
let craft characters add their own personal touches. This approach has the added value of being able to
market the crafts of a popular virtual craftsperson in the real world.
In periods where the precise process by which particular objects are manufactured is disputed or
unknown, this sort of character-crafting could offer some answers in the way of comparative simulations
of object creation/manufacture .
Wealth. One of the time honored traditions of the upwardly mobile is to collect the very best of
everything. In stories, the objects in a room are an immediate indicator of the financial status of the owner
–– assuming that the story visitor recognizes differences in the ―quality‖ of objects. Written stories
normally make it very clear how objects relate to the social status of the owner. Acted-out stories tend to
look for some ―hook‖ that will directly relate objects of the period to the visitors‘ pre-conceived notions
of affluence. For example, a film set in ancient Crete at the height of its influence might have royal
characters dressed in fine linen and drinking from jewel-encrusted cups. Although the actual aristocracy
of Crete may have detested linen, found that jewels make drinking cups difficult to lift, and opted for a
life of elegant simplicity (to set themselves apart from merchants), the linen/jewels version would fit
modern story visitors‘ (and producers‘) pre-conceptions of what sorts of objects royalty ―should‖ possess.
In fact, films that are extremely accurate in historical detail may overwhelm and confuse audiences used
to Hollywood gentrification.
In drams, where travelers are very, very close to the storyworld, multiple versions of the same historical
period are certain to be developed, perhaps offered as options within the same dram: entertaining,
educational, and historical. For example, only history buffs, adventurers and the relentlessly masochistic
are likely to want to visit a full sensory version of London in the 1880‘s. (Think of that outhouse you
came across on your camping trip. Now think of that outhouse infested with ticks, fleas, and rats.) But
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with smell, taste, and touch ―gentrified‖, London could be quite popular with edutainment travelers.
You might think that objects wouldn‘t need to be gentrified in this way, but sanitation and maintenance
vary greatly from time to time and place to place, so that some travelers would be loath to touch anything
in a room in our London example, or would be so depressed by the realization that most Londoners lived
in what we would think of as abject poverty that it would be difficult for them to be involved in the story.
Of course, I could also see such dram field trips becoming very popular with the parents of acquisitive
children.
Personal Indicators
We are on much more familiar ground when it comes to objects which tell us about the personality of
characters. The fop with the oversized, jewel-encrusted cap, ruffled neck, pantaloons, milk-colored hose
and pointy-toed slippers announces himself a mile away.
The reason for this, of course, is that although societies do differ quite a bit in terms of attitudes, beliefs,
and customs, the life details revealed by personal objects tend to provide a link to us through time.
For this reason, dram developers need to take special care with objects that reveal the personalities of
characters. In many drams, travelers will be able to spend time in rooms without characters being present.
They will be allowed to rummage through drawers and cabinets and tool sheds, like an exceptionally nosy
neighbor. Generic objects just won‘t do in this situation. They must be dictated by the personality of the
character. In dram development situations where characters are ―grown‖ and maintain a high level of
independence, they will be able to acquire or make their own objects.
Until that time, personal objects will need to be generated using lists of culturally appropriate objects
which are personalized (wear and tear, color, personal modifications) according to the needs of the story.
A good model for the level of detail necessary for drams are those nineteenth century novels and literary
diaries filled with ―trivial‖ details. They may be page-skippers for readers, but they‘re a gold mine for
personal object developers.

Dram Objects in Story Flow

Beyond the use of objects as aids in establishing class, character, culture, geography, and historical
period, they sometimes play crucial roles in the process of a story, especially in the ongoing interaction
between the story visitor and the storyworld –– which I call ―story flow‖ (discussed in detail in the next
section of these Notes).
From the Quest for the Holy Grail to the journey to Mars for a packet of dust, objects have often been the
focus of story plots, subplots, and critical events. ―The Man in the Iron Mask‖ is a classic example where
an object is of central focus in an action-adventure romance, but almost any story which requires the
reader to look for clues will use objects to create interest, credibility, or suspense.
There‘s the briefcase full of money that has been arranged, just so. That hatchet used to grisly effect must
not only be accurate, it must also make the audience cringe just looking at it. That can of kerosene used to
start the blaze must be prominent enough to draw focus in the scene. And, of course, there‘s always that
shower curtain in Hitchcock‘s ―Psycho‖.
Remember, the storyteller is in the business of telling or creating myths, and successful myths tune into
basic human needs, desires, and capabilities. One of the most important human capabilities is our ability
to use and make objects –– that opposable thumb thing. This makes objects central to human life, from
their use in occupations to their function as social and personal indicators. In many ways we are owned by
our objects.
We hold objects and use them, we covet and hide them, borrow and steal them from one another. That
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makes them crucial to the process of stories, and vital to the process of drams.
Objects Used to Set Traveler Choices and Expectations. You mightn‘t think that a traveler would
choose a story based on its objects, but ―The Treasure of Sierra Madre‖, ―The Pink Cadillac‖, and a
number of romances and comedies (not to mention mysteries) are based around the theft/acquisition of
some very desired article.
From that point of view, there are any number of objects that could be used to whet traveler‘s appetites ––
all targeted to popular hobbies. ―Visit an authentic Shaker community, accurately furnished.‖
―RoseGardenMystery takes you into a world where every known variety of rose is growing, budding, or
in bloom." ―Sit down to a 1950's family dinner in the U.S., complete with frozen dinners, plastic
dishware, and jello!‖ ―Welcome to Puzzle World, where the characters communicate entirely through
double acrostics and where objects are shaped like words.‖
Once travelers have been lured into participating in such a dram, their expectations about the story can be
nudged along by objects. For example, travelers who enter an 18 th Century tavern that is filled with rich,
happy tapestries, clean pewter dishware, solid benches, and lots of mugs stacked on shelves next to the
ceiling, might expect a pleasant experience, especially if everything is just a bit more colorful than one
might expect of such inns. (Not the inns of Don Quixote or Gorky, but of Mr. Pickwick.) All this without
having seen a character.
Talking Objects. This is a category composed of objects which aren‘t characters, but which nonetheless
can give certain information to travelers. They will be able to tell the traveler what they are, what they are
used for, their current status, how they relate to other objects, and perhaps a history of the traveler‘s
interaction with them. ―You had three pieces of cheesecake yesterday, Mr. Sharpe,‖ said the
FattyFridge .
Objects should also be able to remember who they belong to and other relationships. For example, in the
MexicanCaveAdventure, there might be a room filled with devices that are activated based on which
―clan‖ a traveler belongs to. The devices might also respond differently depending on a traveler‘s current
status in the clan. The individual objects in the cave world are tokens of the clan and status of an intruding
traveler and could appear/disappear and perhaps change function based on those factors.
At a deeper level, objects which sense a close affiliation should be able to change shape, color, warmth,
etc. based on a traveler‘s mood or the prevailing emotional climate .
Objects as Tokens. Owning an object and using it can be an important part of a scenario –– for example
ClueHunt or TreasureHunt scenarios, or more subtle approaches, such as ―Mementos‖, where objects
become keepsakes of a dram journey and can be redeemed for ―real‖ versions of the objects at a later
time. There are a number of game strategies where players pick up objects as they move through various
rooms of an environment.
- Scavenger Hunt Approach
- Object may represent a product placement for itself in the real world. The traveler gathers a
discount or a reward on the object and can used it in the real world.
Objects Used to Re-Direct the Traveler. Where there exists a profile on the traveler –– especially a
like/dislike profile –– it should be possible to divert them from their present course of action using
objects. For example, if a traveler is known to be interested in rocking chairs from early 20 th Century
Maine, U.S., then by placing one of these in a room you may well get the ―Oh God. I‘ve got to sit in
that?‖ response from the traveler.
This entire category of objects (head-turners or diversion objects), given a thorough enough traveler
profile, can be used to lure travelers away from their original path or conversation. On a less subtle level,
a huge mound of objects in an alleyway –– i.e. a pile of garbage –– is likely to dissuade someone from
running through. Objects that smell, are too loud, too bright, or which have glaring colors are wonderful
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dissuaders.
When travelers are looking for particular objects, as within a scavenger hunt, they are going to move
more rapidly through a space. This could also be true of unique objects, which have never been
encountered outside of the dram.
Can keep travelers occupied for a particular time. Objects that don‘t function as they should –– the
doorknob that falls off, the slippery surface, are quite useful in storytelling environments.
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Advanced Uses of Dram Spaces &

Objects

Introduction

There are four advanced dram space/object features –– out of innumerable possibilities –– that I‘d like to
discuss here:
- Intelligent Spaces & Objects –– crucial for rapid presentation of environments
- Mood Enhancement –– providing atmosphere for storytelling environments
- Real World Spaces & Objects –– ways of integrating ongoing events and ―reality‖ into Virtual
Drama scenarios
- Genre-Specific Features –– ways dram spaces & objects can be used in these storytelling genres:
family, children‘s, fairy tales, adventures, mysteries, horror, romance, speculative, and humor.

Intelligent Spaces & Objects

Dram communities filled with truly independent characters are likely to be ―quick-grown‖ and will be
able to build, construct, or buy their own spaces and objects, which will allow for the sort of hodge-
podge, helter-skelter appearance of an urban landscape –– or the deeper recesses of teenager Jake‘s
bedroom closet.
Until virtual communities can be grown and cloned for use in drams, we‘ll have to be content with spaces
and objects that are prepared in advance and modified for particular scenarios. From the dram scenario
developer point of view, the best possible approach would be to mix and match components for both
spaces and objects by being able to pick them up and place them in the desired environment. This
assumes that these individual components –– which aren‘t, remember, ―real‖ structures –– know a great
deal about their own physical properties, including their own size, texture, shape, color, density, and
response to all sorts of physical events and conditions, so that they can be standardized for use in
storytelling situations.
Even assuming that overall dram environmental controls will be able to simulate gravity, weather, and
gross physical effects, that garden wall in the ArabianNights will need to know how to react to leaves
growing over it (or the Jelsen twins sitting on it), and the rook in the elaborate living chess set in
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RussianTales will need to communicate how it feels (and squeals) when it is picked up and placed in
danger of capture.
It will also be useful for spaces and objects to be able to adjust themselves on-the-fly as conditions
change. If they can also sense the presence of characters and travelers, and can communicate directly with
traveler equipment, they will start to approach the utility of ―real‖ things.

Space & Object Intelligence Example: A Fairly Intelligent Room

A traveler and a character are about to enter the character‘s apartment. They‘ve just discussed having a
glass of wine and a snack before leaving for an evening at the theatre.
When it‘s clear that the two of them are going to enter the living room space, the space controller calls up
specifications for the rooms, either as they appeared when last visited by the traveler, or how they should
look according to the story scenario. This overview includes any objects and their likely placement within
the room –– especially if the scenario is ongoing.
As space control requests the room and its contents to display themselves, it passes on information about
the character, the traveler, and the current scenario. This information includes an actual history of the
room, the character‘s memory of the room, and the traveler‘s experience with the room –– including any
interactions with objects and furniture. All this information allows space control to pass on an estimate of
which of the character‘s objects/furniture are likely to be used –– and have to be invested with the ability
to be touched/moved. Have surfaces been dusted recently?
Complex environments, like an apartment building, might well have a series of space controllers –– one
for each apartment. The space controller for the building handles all common spaces and the general
design and appearance of the building itself. But the space controllers do all the heavy dramatic lifting.
For example, space control knows that wine and cheese has been discussed. The refrigerator will be
opened. What is the character likely to have inside the refrigerator? Was the traveler in the space
recently? Did she look in the refrigerator? Is it like a microbiology experiment inside or would a
committee of grandmothers nod approvingly? A knife for cutting the cheese may be in a utility drawer ––
an extraordinarily complex environment if you consider that it could contain any number of objects, with
different physical, tactile, and functional properties .
Should the cheese knife and the corkscrew be already out to make things somewhat less complicated? Or,
is there some other implement in the utility drawer –– say, a letter opener belonging to the traveler‘s
virtual lover –– that will have relevance to the scenario?
What sort of wine will the character have on hand? Is it related to the scenario? ―Oh, you have a
Bulgarian Chardonnay. I thought no one in town carried that.‖ ―No. Margot shipped me a case on her last
trip.‖ ―Oh. Margot again.‖
All of this guesstimation may seem like a lot of unnecessary effort. Why not have each object and space
have its own properties and let the traveler‘s body filter make sensory adjustments? Ultimately –– in
virtual communities full of independent characters and intelligent spaces and objects –– this makes the
most sense, but until we get to that level of technical sophistication, developers are going to want to
maximize use of resources. Just walk through your own living space and count objects. Are they all the
same shape? Same texture? Will they drop to the ground the same way? Nope.
In our pre-theater-snack example, as the character and the traveler enter the apartment, everything is
ready. The character and space control use private communication channels to pass information to each
other. Let‘s say that the traveler notices that the character has a new rug. The automated character may
not know until the last minute that he has a new rug, since it has been specifically introduced by dram
control to push the storyline in a particular direction. The rug itself may have to provide the character
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with the circumstances of its purchase –– just in case the traveler notices.
If the traveler remembers that the corkscrew is in the utility drawer, and the character can‘t dissuade her
from trying to find it, ―drawer-control‖ will need to click into operation, arranging the contents of the
drawer plus their physical, sensory, and functional attributes. Drawer control, the traveler‘s body filter
and the GuardianAngel communicate to see what sensory levels are to be used. Of course if the characters
are fully independent and the world has been developed ―naturally‖, the drawer will be just as it was
when the character last used it in this particular instance of the world.
If the corkscrew is clearly visible in the drawer, there will be less need for ―rummaging‖, so drawer
control places it carefully and accesses its physical properties. The traveler picks up the corkscrew. She
feels objects on either side of it and the surface underneath it as she lifts it. She carries it over to the table
and holds it with one hand as she gets the bottle of wine. The body filter and the objects are
communicating rapidly. This one-handed maneuver is one of several instances when space control will
need to anticipate that the corkscrew might be dropped. Will it bounce on a metal table? Will it stick into
a cork floor? Those surfaces will need to be on ―standby‖ beneath the most likely walking routes.
The traveler pours the wine into glasses and brings them over to a coffee table where the character has
placed cheese and crackers. Will the traveler‘s body filter permit her to actually taste the cheese? What
should it taste like? Is it slightly stale? Is the wine bitter? Each of these sensory elements can be used to
advance the story.
As they sit on the sofa behind the coffee table, the sofa knows that the traveler is using apparatus which
permits her to sit with a particular level of tactile sensitivity. The body filter relates the weight of the
traveler to the composition of the cushions of the couch and comes up with some possibilities for the
sitting experience. Did the traveler sit on this sofa before? Did she make any comments?
Multiple Travelers. As usual, having a group of travelers in a shared dram space makes space/object
control much more complex. The more ―realistic‖ the desired group experience, the more intelligent
individual objects and spaces have to be, since the overload on central controls will be considerable
otherwise.
If, for example, we have a cocktail party scene with three travelers and ten characters, having essential
objects –– such as glasses, napkins, etc. –– establish direct communication with traveler body filters
makes for a much more fluid experience. Of course the napkins, which are likely to be dropped, must
know that they can‘t move through the surfaces of the room (such as the floor).
When multiple travelers are sharing dram space it will be especially important to reduce the number of
objects that can be manipulated either by identifying in advance which things can be touched/lifted or by
restricting their use in other ways.
Relative Objects. A particularly intriguing possibility for experiences involving multiple travelers,
especially where travelers have a certain amount of control over design, is to have objects whose surface
features and textures are slightly different for each traveler –– perhaps filtered by the body filter to match
traveler mood, sensory requirements, or pre-dram specifications. The structure, shape, size, and function
of the objects would remain the same, but that vase in the corner might be a deeper blue, might reflect
light a bit more for some travelers.

Mood Enhanced Spaces & Objects

Making Story Spaces & Objects Human. From the village storyteller relaying tribal truths to multi-
million dollar special effects films peddling violent behavioral archetypes, the effectiveness of a story
relies on its ability to convince us of its essential humanness.
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One of the most powerful and dangerous effects of the human development of symbolic language lies in
our ability to describe places, spaces, and objects not only literally, but also with human emotions and
beliefs overlaid on them. ―The sun rose at 6:35 this morning‖ becomes ―the sweaty sliver of sun seemed
to float up out of their soaked shirts.‖ ―They weren‘t quite sure how long it would take to cross the desert‖
turns into ―their hopes evaporated as they looked westward, across an apparently endless expanse of sand,
with no mountains, no water, no homecoming in sight.‖ A shirt and a patch of sand have been invested
with emotion .
This emotional loading is achieved in written story forms by the use of metaphor, simile, and
anthropomorphic description. In acted-out forms, the storyteller uses lighting, color, perspective, and
background music to help us relate to the emotional state of characters as well as the general ―feel‖ of a
space. Often stories take the emotional point of view of principal characters, and so a pretty room on a
sunlit day may be shown as harsh and glaring, with tense music making us feel as though something will
go wrong at any moment. If you think this is contrived, you‘re right. But we never go anywhere without
toting along our emotional baggage. Right now I‘m typing away in a pretty coffee shop on a bright and
sunny Saturday afternoon. Most people are laughing and enjoying the day. One young woman sits at a
small table. She is despondent. A little earlier she cried quietly and dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.
People around her were drawn into her mood. ―Poor girl. Wonder what happened.‖ You can almost hear
the minor-chord violins in the background.
Making the Real Un-Real. A related storytelling technique is to take a space or an object and to so load
it with emotional or metaphorical significance that it seems to stand outside of space and time. It becomes
―un-real‖. The ring in Tolkien‘s ―Lord of the Rings‖ –– and other myths. The three beds in the tale of
Goldilocks and the Three Bears are just ripe for psychoanalysis. Charles Dickens‘ description of the
decaying wedding cake in Great Expectations represents the wasting away both of a life and of a way of
life. Charles Schultz‘s cartoon character Charlie Brown‘s chronic inability to understand that Lucy will
pull away the football before he can kick it tells us that things can always be taken away from us.
Bergman and Kurosawa‘s bleak and frightening film landscapes make us say ―Wow‖ and ―I‘m glad I‘m
not there‖ at the same time.
It is very difficult to overlay characters with this sort of significance today because we have too much
experience of human nature, especially conflict-based events portrayed in TV and film. We understand
that many of the heroes of old were more PR than A+. So the modern storyteller turns to the background
to extend the scope of the story into the mythical.
Mood Enhanced Spaces & Objects in Drams. One very real difficulty that will be encountered by dram
developers will be helping travelers make the transition from current acted-out story forms –– which use
emotionally charged lights, music, sound, point-of-view, pacing, and detail selection –– to the 3D,
apparently real, settings of drams. Story visitors are so used to having their emotion and stimulation
centers manipulated by storytellers that the ―real‖ world seems oddly unsatisfying.
The acted-out story form that is closest to drams is interactive-site-specific theater: for example, a murder
mystery that takes place over the course of a weekend in an old mansion –– with the story visitors living
in the story environment and interacting with characters. Directors in this story form sometimes go to
great lengths to get the physical ambience right, and it‘s no coincidence that many of these experiences
are set in naturally dramatic settings, using situations that lend themselves to the use of live music,
delicious smells, tasty food and stimulating conversation .
Story visitors dearly love participating in these stories, since they combine puzzle solving and
psychotherapy with limited-time group bonding. They are so busy speculating about why LadyRochfault
dropped her fan in the study that they don‘t much notice the absence of a sound score. Selection goes on
as in other story forms, and major characters are still the primary focus. It‘s just that story visitors are
allowed to ask story characters questions directly.
In a way you can think of the emotional background loading techniques of film and TV as compensating
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for their lack of ―normal‖ interaction by using various sensory manipulations to keep the audience
involved. We have become addicted to a stimulation broth of quick cuts, rapid action, and non-stop
conflict and catharsis.
There are certain advantages to a computer-mediated story form like Virtual Drama when it comes to
conveying the mood of a particular story situation. Ambient light and sound, furnishings, objects, room
size, and any number of other physical elements can be rapidly adjusted to convey the emotional tenor of
particular situations. And they can be individualized.
For example, the sitting room in StatelyMansions might be flooded with light in the morning as travelers
are eating breakfast. Fresh flowers on the tables, a gentle breeze. Birds singing in the distance. A happy
place for an encounter between DameJudith and her new lover (and first cousin) JackWoodworth ––
overheard by travelers through enhanced eavesdropping devices.
Later in the day the same room could be transformed in various ways: the sky is overcast. Ominous
shadows in the room, emphasizing the edges of surfaces. (The surfaces might actually have slightly
sharper edges.) The faint smell of something unpleasant (burning flesh?) lingers in the air.
In the same way that background music and peculiar shot angles in a film can make the stairway to a bell
tower seem like a gateway to hell –– representing the internal state of a major character –– a dram could
customize a stairway so that it represents the traveler‘s own notion of a stairway to hell. Do I see bat
droppings on the steps? Are the stair treads only four inches wide and I have very large feet? The dram
traveler has met the person waiting at the top of the stairs, and he is ―not nice‖. There is the suspicion that
it may be the traveler, not a major character, who falls to their ―death‖.

Mood Enhancement Techniques for Drams

Mood enhancements in a realistic 3D environment must seem ―natural‖ to the space. From that point of
view, small changes in ambient light and sound, surface refraction (light and sound bounced off of
surfaces), textures, and the size and arrangement of objects could be quite effective.
For example, a minute change in shadow patterns when the character VladDrakul walks through a room,
plus a slight increase in the echo quality of the room (to emphasize his hobnail boots) could measurably
add to the dread that properly prepped travelers will feel on coming face to face with one of the nastiest
people in human history. If the dram is attempting something different –– for example to show people
how charming and seductive great evil can be –– room surfaces might reflect slightly more light as he
passes. His voice quality might be hypnotic and more ―surrounding‖ than other characters in the dram.
Primary Light, Shadow, and Color. We are a highly visual species and our emotional states are often
affected by the quality of light, shadow, and color in a space. Although there is certainly a biological
component to this (It‘s raining, go back to sleep, stupid), we are also influenced by familial and social
ideas (―Come out of the bay window or you‘ll get freckles‖) and by media reinforced stereotypes.
There is so much possible variety in the use of light, shadow and color within natural ranges that a great
deal of mood enhancement can be achieved by changing the weather or interior lighting. Depth of shadow
can be altered slightly –– especially if there are multiple light sources –– and the addition or subtraction
of groups of colors can make an extraordinary difference in the ―feel‖ of a space. (Think of the difference
between a low hill in the desert and the same hill covered by moss.)
Because primary light and color are such expressive tools, it makes sense for the dram developer to make
sure that spaces have multiple sources of primary light both indoors and out.
Bounce Light/Sound and Surface Texture. We use light reflected from surfaces to help us identify the
function, usefulness, and friendliness of spaces and objects. The flat object is a knife, not a ruler. The
clock is attached to the serving table. That patch of ground looks icy .
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For example, part of the ―ambience‖ of a space might be defined by the richness of its surfaces:
mahogany, leather, teak, fine wools and expensive fabric dyes. We know that a surface is rich because we
have learned to associate certain complex shadow/color/edge combinations as representing particular
materials. They tend to be called ―rich‖ if they are rare or expensive or possess exceptional depth to the
naked eye.
The same approach applies to sound. Those birds trilling so happily outside in the church cemetery are
―bright‖. The tapestries on the wall and ceiling not only keep the space warm in winter, they also
―deaden‖ sound bouncing off of those ugly stone castle walls. ―Rich‖ living spaces have deep carpeting,
textured walls and sound absorbing ceilings. In the city they block out unwanted sounds from outside. In
the country they might be designed to embrace the outdoors.

Using Real-World Spaces & Objects in Drams

The couple stroll barefoot along the Mediterranean, watch passersby, laugh at gulls, comment on large
white yachts bound for twilight rendezvous. The ocean, the gulls, and the sea are real. The couple are in
their dram room in Mumbai.
It‘s one thing to sample a particular location and present it as part of a dram, and quite another to have the
location sampled live and presented as the surroundings of a dram, complete with characters and
travelers.
Considering the potential expense –– not to mention legal complexity –– of combining live scenes with
computer mediated characters, why would anyone undertake it?
- It allows people to participate in events which are naturally dramatic without encountering any
real danger, or interfering with the events themselves. Volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and other
natural disasters are sources of great curiosity to us. We feel helpless, which is both frustrating and
exciting. When we see these events as news or visit them in stories, though, we feel a bit detached.
Since there are always thrill seeking entrepreneurs willing to document these sorts of events, why
not let everyone participate. Of course, getting the full experience requires wind and heat, the
whine of bullets overhead as the traveler makes her way through a military coup, the jubilant crush
of revelers as they celebrate the birth of a new democracy. There is something very human about
saying ―I was there‖, even if we weren‘t.
- Live events aren‘t totally predictable, and that makes them all the more interesting in our highly
regulated societies. Even spectacles that occur once every year –– like Mardi Gras in Rio or the
New York City Thanksgiving Parade, or the upstream migration of salmon, are substantially
different year after year.
- In an increasingly interdependent global society, people are looking for something in common to
talk about, to marvel at, in ways that transcend the barriers erected by language, culture, and class.
World events, American television, and action adventure movies fulfill part of that need. Putting
travelers right in the middle of ongoing world events –– in fictional situations –– gives everyone in
the tech-netted world something to talk about in the morning.
- Since drams will be used for education and occupational training as well as for entertainment, real
world places and objects offer a perfect opportunity to role play ―unexpected situations‖. Anyone
who has done crisis intervention will tell you that you need to prepare for what won‘t happen.
Using Real World Spaces and Objects in drams. Beyond the not inconsiderable technical issues
involved in placing enough recording devices to recreate a 3D environment –– and to keep people from
using them for advertising :) –– drams with live ―surrounds‖ will often need to select parts of the
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environment for display (jig-saw editing and living filters). They also have the tricky problem of how to
allow travelers to handle real-world objects.
Jig-Saw Editing. Developers may very well need to remove/replace sections of the live surround
for legal reasons or because something simply doesn‘t fit the scenario. For example, in a serene
love dram set in Maui, that two-story pink bus sitting on blocks in front of the blue lagoon would
need to be replaced. Jig-saw editing assumes that you can delineate stationary objects in the
surround (in 3D, remember) and can remove or enhance them at will. It also assumes that there is
some sort of time delay between the live event and its use in a scenario –– to allow for various
forms of manipulation.
It might also be the case that the dram developer might want to create a hodgepodge of live scenic
elements. The sky from Kenya, the reflecting pool outside the Taj Mahal, the crowd in Trafalgar
Square.
Living Filters. Jig-Saw Editing might work for stationary objects or areas, but how about those
naked couples strolling along the Seine or the truck painted with advertising that deliberately
drives through the scene? The size and shape of these moving objects can be calculated in
advance by identifying them well before they move into the active scene. The living filter
recognizes ―truck with people‖, calculates the dimensions, removes the object from the dram and
replaces it with the sampled background. This makes it important to track objects well outside of
the active dram area.
Ghost Objects. If travelers are to be permitted to interact with live surrounds, objects will need to
be cloned, so that a traveler reaching for that ripe apple in a Balkan orchard can pluck it, hold it,
or eat it. The living filter has already removed the ―live‖ apple from the scene.
Putting Dram Characters and Objects into Real Spaces. Let‘s say that you‘re on holiday in
Cambridge, UK. Having tired of punting, brass rubbing, and listening to undergraduates making caustic
comments about tourists in Esperanto, you decide to do the WhiteHorseMystery dram. Very expensive,
but hey, you deserve it. You don special glasses that allow you to see the dram world overlaid onto the
―real world‖ environment (so you don‘t go bumping into things). The dram world is able to pinpoint your
position and the relative position of that real alleyway you‘re walking through, perhaps adding a stray dog
here, a character there. This is similar to interactive mystery theater, and is an application which could
well come before full-scale drams.
Characters, objects and scenic overlays could be added using the glasses. Of course there‘s likely to be a
fuss made by actual residents as travelers with strange glasses walk about muttering to themselves.
(Although, as anyone who‘s lived in Cambridge will tell you, that isn‘t an altogether unusual occurrence.)
Living filters can be used to overlay character-istics onto actual elements developers don‘t want
displayed, and to help dram characters avoid real people in the dram. Of course there is the problem of
accidentally picking up a real piece of garbage, so warning signs might have to be included.
Practical applications for this sort of dram abound, since it wouldn‘t be that difficult to include the wiring
schematic for a building, which the traveler‘s new ―x-ray vision‖ would allow them to see. ―There‘s
damage in section ―C‖. Can you repair it, boss?‖
For special occasions , portable projection units could be used to re-create an Old Kingdom barge trip
through the Valley of the Kings, or a ghost town with real ghosts, or to re-furnish the castle of Ludwig II.
You get the idea.
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Space & Objects Used In Selected Story Genres

Spatial Requirements for Specific Story Genres

When we think about stories, we ordinarily consider first the way the story is presented (oral, written,
acted out) and then the ―genre‖ of the story (mystery, romance, fantasy, adventure, etc.). ―Genre‖ is an
extremely useful word because it defines a number of elements that will be immediately recognized by
anyone who spends any amount of time involved with stories. Ask someone what a ―mystery‖ is and
they‘ll first give you an example, and then launch into its characteristics. Included in the description is
likely to be: usual setting, pacing, kinds of characters, and general story flow .
Each story genre has characteristic settings, spatial requirements, and likely use of objects. Here are a few
examples:

Examples of Spaces and Objects in Story Genres

Family Stories. The dinner table story is a good example of a family story. It is likely to concern itself
with events which take place in homes, places of work, playgrounds, and vacation areas. There isn‘t likely
to be a lot of action, and explosions –– except of the emotional variety –– are right out.
In drams, the traveler is likely to want to ―ghost‖ characters very closely, to dive into their pasts, and to
make a close examination of the objects they have collected throughout the years. Where travelers are
participating, they will either need to be part of the family, and quite familiar with the history of
individual bits of spaces (―Isn‘t that the wall where Uncle Yuri threw the pasta at the pigeon?‖) or become
visiting guests, where they will be permitted to ask certain types of questions. And then there is the dram
history of your own family.
Children’s Stories are specifically designed to be presented to children (as the story visitors) They tend
to have lots of lively color, may have simplified settings (to aid focus) and can have very short scenes.
Instruction of various sorts (moral and practical) is often included, so that the sorts of places and objects
in use might vary wildly. Characters often include talking animals and children of various ages as
principal characters.
Drams are a natural form for children‘s stories, since they will allow for hands-on access to story
elements and direct interaction with characters –– already a feature of the story form known as ―children‘s
theatre‖. Developers should expect intense interest in the surroundings. Everything in sight will be
touched and manipulated.
Active drams (using bubble suits, gelwalkers, etc.) will have to be specially constructed to provide for the
safety of children using the devices. Young kids love to run and tumble, and that floating jungle-gym in
the sky, or the crawl-through maze in WormWorld will be irresistible.
Educational / Occupational Stories. drams are likely to serve many purposes, with entertainment
interlocked with learning of various forms. Because learning assumes detailed interaction with places and
objects that are accurately rendered, educational / occupational drams are likely to be the most demanding
for the developer. Travelers might find themselves inside the surface of the sun, at the opening of a
Pharaoh‘s tomb, or in the middle of a particularly bit of laser/nanotech surgery.
The detail in these sorts of drams must be accurate and visible. Where objects have to be taken apart or
used in some complex way (that do-it-yourself orbiting spacecraft dram, for example), they must function
as they would normally. This puts great demands on dram resources and makes interoperability of dram
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spaces and objects more than a little essential.

Since the learning aspects of these sorts of drams are likely to be more important than the entertainment
elements, developers may want to offer stripped down versions of those spaces/objects not directly related
to the edu-plot.
Fables / Fairy Tales. Stories that offer both children and adults an entertaining look at situations which
have moral, ethical, and relationship consequences without naming names are fables and fairy tales,
which often present animals or stereotyped human characters in clearly defined situations.
Since the character relationships are extremely important in these stories, places and objects tend to have
symbolic value. The deep, dark woods. The golden apple. The house made of straw. In many ways, the
metaphorical value of places/objects for these stories is more important than literal interpretation, and so
stylized/ stereotypical/ archetypal depictions of spaces/objects familiar to story visitors is important.
Drams which continue this tradition are likely to put travelers in situations where their participation in the
fairy tale allows them to learn the main ―lesson‖ of the fable.
Although it‘s true that many such stories involve animals, characters seem pretty much like humans, e.g.
the houses of the Three Little Pigs. However, the rural or small town settings of many fairy tales are a
basic feature of the genre.
Action Adventures. Stories that involve quite a bit of physical action and/or travel are ―adventures‖.
Story visitors participate in feats involving risk taking, skill and courage. This story form is favored in
film because action is universal. The less dialogue there is, the less dialogue has to be translated,
overdubbed, or explained.
Dram apparatus of the sorts mentioned in the beginning of this section should make it possible for
travelers to ride along with the Three Musketeers, follow pre-historic man from campfire to campfire,
climb Mt. Everest, and perform other feats of daring –– all from the relative safety of an equipment room.
The significant problem for developers, of course, is allowing travelers to do all this without putting them
in hospital. This will call for considerable creativity in the arrangement of spaces and objects since
travelers will be moving through, in, and around them –– often at considerable rates of speed .
Fortunately for developers, prior to the age of the digital stand-in, the action/adventure film industry
developed quite a bit of expertise at arranging ―stunts‖ involving actors. There is quite a bit of
information available about just how much wind will collapse that sailboat, or what sort of terrain will
cause horses to fall (or, being somewhat more sensible than humans, to refuse to go forward over that
cliff). Have to jump from building to building in the UrbanDays dram? Someone knows how close the
buildings have to be for an out-of-shape traveler (with a little wind assistance) to complete the jump
without having combined panic/heart attacks.
The locales for action adventures tend to be quite variable, which translates into ―expensive‖ for dram
developers. We‘ve all seen action heroes ditching the personal jet, scuba-ing to shore in Hawaii, having
drinks along the Seine, and climbing skyscrapers in Hong Kong in the course of a single adventure. Once
again, ―open standards‖ that allow well known places to be shared by many developers will be crucial to
the health of the industry.
Mysteries. I was just in a used-book store that had two sections devoted to literary fiction and an entire
floor set aside for mysteries. Guess where most of the customers had congregated? Virtually every TV
and film story you can think of has elements of the mystery in it. We love to solve puzzles. Although
mystery stories could occur almost anywhere, the puzzle-solving tends to focus on character personalities
and evidence. This means indoor scenes and detailed examination of objects.
Travelers are likely to love dram mysteries, since they get to interview characters and examine the
evidence themselves. They‘ll want to walk down the staircase where AuntBethany did a triple somersault
(and examine the bannister where a trip wire might have been attached). In forensic mystery drams,
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travelers are likely to have ―crime kits‖ that will allow them to do more detailed evaluation of evidence.
Of course, attention to detail in both settings and the placement/composition of objects will be important
for mystery drams. It won‘t do for GeneralRajib‘s custom-made pistol grip to be teal green in one scene
and leaf green in another. Mystery travelers will be examining everything in excruciating detail, making
notes, and comparing details with other travelers. Every single element will have to be just-so.
Science Fiction / Fantasy. Stories which take place in the future and/or in other parts of the universe will
be especially popular with early dram developers, since the ―early adopters‖ of these sorts of technologies
tend to be the same techno-enthusiasts who purchase astonishing quantities of sci-fi novels, pay to watch
the same film fifty times in movie theaters, and miss work reaching level 986 of SkunkWorld .
Fantasies tend to take place in pre-industrial settings. Sci-fi deals with new technologies or other
planets/species. Novelty is more or less required in the creation of spaces/places/objects for both of these
genres. But, they need to be rooted in the familiar, and must obey currently understood laws of
physics/biology/engineering, or give a very good reason why not.
Creating entire worlds/cultures that will be examined and endlessly discussed by travelers with access to
vast amounts of information isn‘t a trivial matter, and I expect existing popular novel series to be mined
and expanded for drams. Each tech-toy, each new plant species, and each humanoid-species social
permutation has to be developed and tested carefully.
Horror Stories. Pouncing on each other from concealed places is a form of play our scavenger, pounce-
on-small-stuff-and-eat-it species has practiced since the beginning. We practice being frightened so that
we‘ll know when we really do need to run away.
The horror story relies on gruesome suspense –– on nasty things popping out in the dark, on stumbling
across nasty things unexpectedly.
Places used in the genre tend to be abandoned or decaying, or have lots of places to hide, which is one
reason very few horror stories –– except for zombie films –– take place in open spaces during daylight.
Large, old houses with lots of rooms and dark corners are perfect for this genre. Objects tend to be
peculiar –– think ancient daggers and decaying manuscripts.
Dram developers will want to use transitional spaces –– such as corridors, entranceways, etc. ––
closed/locked doors and lots of peculiar objects to set up travelers for ―the pounce‖. In keeping with
tradition, I expect horror drams to involve travelers who don‘t get out of the story alive, but have to
―ghost‖ the rest of the experience once they are eliminated. The most popular handled objects are likely to
be weapons of various sorts and tools to board up doorways, open coffins, and so forth.
Romances. The modern romance typically involves a heroine who gets involved with a difficult,
troubled, impossibly handsome, and wealthy man who lives in a mansion with lots of atmosphere. (Think
alpha male with a cravat.) Gothic and other darkly severe settings are popular with romances, since they
are good metaphors for the conquest of fear, which in this case is the fear of sexual passion taking one
totally out of control .
Objects are beautiful, exotic, and represent longing.
Since the romance is the best-selling novel form in the U.S. at the moment, and since drams will allow for
a level of detail, realism, and privacy similar to the novel, I expect personal participation dram romances
–– and their sexual extensions –– to be wildly popular .
Humorous Stories / Comedies. As you can see, I‘ve left the most difficult genre for last. Humor is
individual and culture specific. Most cultures laugh at pratfalls and certain types of physical humor, but
since humor tends to be built on cultural expectations, cross-cultural comedies are fairly rare. Of course
there are some family situations involving men, women, children and in-laws that transcend cultures, but
even in a world where remote villages in Asia watch re-runs of vintage American TV comedies, humor
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tends to stay close to home.

There is also quite a difference between comedies that are presented to us, as in most story forms, and
funny situations that we live through .
Each family, social group, and culture has a person who tells funny stories, or who is personally funny,
and this can be the basis for humorous dram stories –– being put in a room with Uncle Kwaza and his
stupid crocodile stories.
Incongruity in physical settings and events is also a universal source of humor. The door of the house
moving just out of reach. The pig with the Mona Lisa smile.
If you think about the last few comedy films/TV shows you watched, you‘ll notice that objects and
settings were primarily used for background, as ―sight-gags‖, or as devices to demonstrate conflict
between two characters.
Perhaps research leading to humor drams will demonstrate that there is some form of universal humor.
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Designing Dram Spaces and

Objects

Building Brigadoon City

Legend has it that there‘s a mythical town in the Scottish Highlands that appears for one day every
hundred years. The story of that town was made into the musical ‗Brigadoon‘. In a very real way, creating
the spaces and objects of Virtual Drama is like building Brigadoon. Towns only appear when a traveler
dons the proper gear and when the immersive environment is turned on. Our Brigadoon is potentially a
very large town, though, and contains every conceivable type of home, business, entertainment and public
space from every period in history.
How do you go about building Brigadoon? Oddly enough, we‘ve already constructed quite a lot of it, and
the rest can be sampled from existing structures and created to meet specific needs –– like that floating
jungle gym.
As soon as it became clear that computer technologies could graphically display complex structures,
engineers, architects, and materials researchers rushed to put their schematics and models into digital
form. As display power improved, simulations of physical properties and functions of both structures and
objects became possible.
Today, almost any product you can think of –– from the packaging of your morning cereal to the
equipment used to build the warehouse where it is stored –– is first prepared and tested in digital form.
Theoretically we should be able to gather all of this digital information, find a way to translate 2D to 3D
(where that is necessary), and voila, megalopolis Brigadoon is born.
Unfortunately, most of the digital information we need is owned/copyrighted by commercial entities who
would have to be convinced to donate some version of their property to an international nonprofit, ―open
standards‖ objects and spaces databank.

Digital Spaces and Objects Databank (DISPOD)

Until the ability to directly and inexpensively translate existing digitized structures into immersive 3D
forms exists, it will be a good idea to start collecting them before they disappear –– especially detailed
engineering drawings/specifications/simulations for complex structures and products which are no longer
marketed or in use.
One way of doing this might be to set up an international databank for digital spaces, structures, and
objects. At first unwanted or ―orphaned‖ data might be collected, and then new digital structures would be
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―donated‖ or created under an ―open standards‖ model with small licensing fees for more complex
structures .
Considering that biotech companies have even been patenting bits of the human genome, getting
donations for a world of places and objects may seem ―pie-in-the-sky‖, but the specter of a company
pantenting, say, the movement of a rubber ball –– so that no one else would be able to use a ball in drams
without paying royalties –– should help to convince sensible dram developers that interoperability of
dram places and objects is not only highly desirable, but much, much more lucrative commercially than
totally ―owned and defended‖ environments. (Think of a children‘s play environment where Barbie can
only play in her own playhouse. Where action/adventure toys can‘t be carried from room to room, and
into the tree house in the back yard.)
It will be crucial to start developing DISPOD as soon as possible, before dram worlds start being actively
marketed.

Open Object and Place Standards (OOPS) for Drams

To develop a healthy dram industry, it will be crucial to establish ―open standards‖ for the
creation/recreation of basic spaces, structures, and objects. This will mean employing the minds and
talents of thousands of students and researchers who see the common sense in having, say, kitchen tables
and chairs readily available for use by everyone in the industry. Of course some schema to protect the
proprietary rights of extremely specific objects (such as an Eames chair or a Rollex watch) will have to be
developed, but these are often ―surface‖ details rather than structural in nature. The advantage of having
your product freely available for use in dram world used by millions of potential real world purchasers
shouldn‘t be lost on sensible CEO‘s and Marketing Directors.

Sampling and Standardization

As you walk around today, just try to be conscious of all of the different kinds of spaces and objects you
come across. There are a lot of spaces out there. An infinite number of objects. An important way of
getting a fair number of those objects and spaces through OOPS and into DISPOD will be various rapid
sampling and modularization techniques.
Sampling. Large areas –– such as cities, mountain ranges, wilderness areas –– can be sampled by flyby
3D modeling for use by any number of dram tours and adventures. ―Let‘s meet in Goteborg and do the
university bar-hopping mystery tour.‖ ―We could go to San Diego and play LostInBalboaPark‖ .
By keeping the sampling ongoing (via satellite and in-place monitoring equipment) we can provide up-to-
date tours of a large number of virtual spaces.
Smaller surfaces and objects can be sampled using ―black box‖ technologies –– where the objects are
placed in a box and sampled. Especially useful will be sampling programs that model the
function/movement of objects and reduce the results to common formulas. Modeling a ball being kicked –
– with actual spin, dirt, etc. added in –– is no mean feat.
For the purpose of OOPS, it will be important to sample as many standard objects as quickly as possible,
and to establish an international legal basis for both sampling standards and the global right to digitize
standard objects and structures.
Modularization of Elements. Although there are an enormous number of objects in the world, there
aren‘t really all that many shapes and structures recognized as being different by humans. This means that
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certain basic structures should be able to be used over and over again. A bureau/dresser is rectangular, has
drawers that open, metal fixtures that open them, a top surface that magically becomes cluttered with
objects when no one is looking.
Differences in size and number of drawers, wood finish or lamination are just details from this point of
view. If we can model the basic functioning of a bureau (e.g. how the bureau contains various objects
such as clothing, pencils, etc.), and we model the properties of say, mahogany surfaces, we can create any
number of mahogany bureaus, in various sizes and with varying external details.
These standard elements become a part of DISPOD, so that they can be assembled rapidly into, say, a
hundred new houses for the LyonMystery dram.
Extend this sort of standardization into living objects (plants, trees, etc.) and weather, and the plug-and-
play possibilities are pretty clear.
Worlds-R-Us. Developers will be looking for some way to add their own proprietary, saleable ―spin‖ on
dram worlds. Although I believe that providing extremely interesting interactive character environments
is the best way to do this, dram developers will be looking to create their own stock ―storyworlds‖.
For example, say a developer picks up Arizona weather, Key West homes, Shaker furniture, Navajo
fabrics and Swedish utensils for a particular dram. The developer uses a design team to make alterations
in colors, functions, etc. and makes changes which provide a ―unique look‖.
Or, if a developer is creating a small town from a particular historical period, she might select an
historically accurate sample of homes, shops, farms, etc. by walking through a virtual warehouse of
structures from the period, picking a farmhouse here, paving stones there. She re-assembles them into the
ideal town for the dram.
A particularly interesting use of this plug-n-play strategy for advanced drams would be to have virtual
people themselves walk through the Worlds-R-Us department for the period and pick out furniture,
clothing, etc. that is appropriate for them. Of course, in a virtual community developed ―from scratch‖, all
of the structures and objects will have been built by the characters themselves over many, many
quicktime generations.

Specialized Design Elements

There are two areas of space/object design that are so complex that standardization is likely to be
necessary for all but the most sophisticated dram designs: weather and living objects.
Weather and Other Natural Phenomena. The four of you are at the beach, playing happily in the surf
when a storm comes up and the lifeguard whistles you out of the water. The wind whips up as you leave
the beach, stinging your faces and pelting your bags and that half opened lunch basket with sand.
As you get a block from your beach house, the heavens open and you are quite literally soaked to the skin.
You get to the house and discover that the wind has pushed open the patio doors and little whirlpools of
sand and rain are whirling corn chips, dishes, and dog food around and around in the air.
The natural phenomena described here –– ocean, wind, sand, rain –– all have patterns of activity and
behavior, but they are very complex patterns, especially when you look at how they affect localized areas.
Local Effect Bubbles. For example, when the beachgoers are caught in the blowing sand, each of them
will be affected in a slightly different way, depending on their location relative to the wind. To model the
entire beach-in-rain phenomenon we would have to apply, say ―Beachstory #16‖ to the entire area. Such a
model wouldn‘t be able to judge the position of the travelers/characters in advance, or the amount of
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available sand for that matter, and so it would have to create a space for detected unknown elements (such
as characters) and then model the interaction between the phenomenon and the characters ―on the fly‖ .
Such ―local effect bubbles‖ could directly interact with the body filters of characters to produce the effect
desired by the scenario. Perhaps Jeremy doesn‘t get wet at all. This allows him to feel superior and to
alienate him from the others.
Undines. Another possible approach to this problem would be to use ―undines‖ (named after the famous
water sprite) which are amorphously shaped, invisible characters which act on objects, characters,
travelers, and other undines within local-effect bubbles.
For example, let‘s say that our beachgoers are walking along a group of dunes above the flat part of the
beach just as the first wind strikes.
A generalized weather model provides the weather/wind effects (local effect bubbles) that the characters
observe at a distance –– dark sky, gull behavior changed, etc. At the point where the general weather
effect reaches the travelers, an amorphously shaped local effect bubble is created around the entire group,
and several undines appear in the bubble and react to events inside and at the edges of the local effect
bubble. Perhaps one undine takes sand coming in and ―throws‖ it at two travelers. Another undine swirls
and then pushes against bodies, maybe knocking Sally into Fred‘s arms. A third undine picks up sand at
their feet and forces it into their shoes. A forth acts directly on objects like newspapers and seashells.
Travelers‘ body filters communicate with the undines directly to translate the ―feeling‖ of the wind, rain
and sand through traveler equipment.
Local effect bubbles are important ways of providing a containment area inside which undines can apply
weather and other natural effects selectively to characters and travelers based on the demands of the story.
Since undines are acting like characters, they can be ―emotional‖ and selective. Since they are extremely
local, the body filters of individual characters don‘t have to communicate with the entire weather effect,
just a localized, targeted sample.
Undines and Local Effect Bubbles may seem like overkill (a friend calls this ―Three-Stooges-Modeling‖)
but when you take a look at just how complex the interaction between weather and objects is, any solution
that simplifies the simulation is to be appreciated.
I can also see using undines to provide much simpler static weather effects. For example, the interior of a
climate controlled office building rarely has totally evenly distributed temperatures or air flow patterns.
The cubicles in one corner are cooler. The ones by the window might be hotter and more humid. The
conference room in the middle of the space feels like Arizona in springtime.
By sampling general environment distribution patterns in similar buildings we can herd temperature
undines into the space in and around specific cubicles. Individual undines have a script to follow, and can
react to events such as, say, a door opening, by passing on a chill breeze (or not) as the script demands. In
the story, it might be desirable to make certain travelers quite comfortable and other uncomfortable in a
space –– so that they will be tempted to move, or to negotiate for a different space.
Mini-undines can also be use to affect the temperature and general dramatic climate surrounding objects.
Should the computer keyboard feel a bit stodgy this morning? Is the photo of the kids just a bit faded.
Does that important memo keep blowing off the desk?
Plants, trees, and insects have patterns of growth and movement that can be specified by complex
mathematical formulas. By comparing sampled patterns with these formulas, we can present growing
living things that will fool all but the most sophisticated of observers.
When travelers interact with such objects a bit more control is required, and I see specialized undines
creating the immediate interface between traveler and living object. For example, when a person walks
through a field of wheat, there is a pattern by which the sheaves of wheat will part, be squashed, lose their
tops, etc. By having localized undines act as a ―natural‖ force which the wheat can respond to, each
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bundle of wheat doesn‘t have to have the capability of responding to a large variety of forces .
In turn, undines can manipulate the traveler/living object interaction in ways that benefit the scenario.
Does little Jackie get poked in the eye by the wheat? Do the sheaves part in a way that signals the
presence of the traveler to the Ogmarta Alien Invaders?

Do-It-Yourself Spaces and Objects

―Salvatore and Mei-Ling floated from level to level in the MarketplaceOfAllWorlds. They tried to
concentrate on the rooms full of furnishings, and they had planned to visit the new Thai Temple floors,
but their characters, Lucia and Vince, bickered so consistently over every possible choice that it was hard
to concentrate. The sales guide, Rafio, was a bit too aggressive for their taste, and so they had their dram
Assistant, Itra, guide them around the space. A hundred million items in one place!‖
Although many travelers will be quite content to experience whatever spaces dram designer-magicians
cook up for them, a major part of the interest in drams is likely to be travelers‘ ability to create and
control their own environments. The nature of this control might be as simple as being able to choose a
few pieces of furniture, or as complex as providing engineering drawings for every wall, hillside, and
plate in an entire town.
In situations where dram developers want to offer design choices, but need to limit their range and
number, it makes sense to provide options directly related to the story. If the scenario calls for a beach in
Rio, then travelers might have choice of hotel, the look of their hotel suites, and so forth. On a
MysteryTour Vacation, they might be offered several standard locales, time of year, weather, and other
environmental variables –– all designed to heighten their participation in the story.
A dram equivalent to TV channel surfing might allow travelers to choose locations, objects, perhaps
entire cities, based on their mood. ―I‘d like a happy place today. Not too happy. Not heavenly happy. Not
too many yellows. But nothing cynical.‖ The dram Assistant and Sales Guides might put their heads
together, examine this request, compare it to other similar dram requests by the traveler, match them
against actual results, and come up with some options based on that track record –– all in the blink of an
eye.
The key here is to be able to evaluate how much choice individual travelers actually want. Are they really
looking for the dram equivalent of a roulette wheel (―Hey, we‘re going to Petrograd.‖) or do they want a
few interesting, entertaining possibilities.
Walk-Through Choices. Travelers who prefer more of an investment in their dram experiences will want
to customize their spaces and objects without going to a lot of trouble. If say, travelers Kyo and Cheri
have purchased a virtual apartment in WildWestCity and are playing ongoing roles in the community
(with character doubles taking their place most of the time), they may well want to furnish it themselves.
So they don gear and trundle off to the megamall accompanied by their doubles and any number of guides
and hangers-on. They move through a store filled with cabins, livestock, tools, and ―genuine Wild West-
type condiments‖. One particular cabin catches their eye, and they have it change wall coverings,
furniture, and character clothing until they find something they can agree on. Some of the suggestions
might be rejected by the sales guide as being ―out of period‖, and others ―not up to WildWestCity‖
specifications, but they finally agree on a package and Kyo and Cheri leave their assistants in the mall to
negotiate price and logistics.
Demo Adventures. Another way to help travelers make informed decisions about space/object choices is
to have them go through a series of demo-experiences where they can live with possible design options. ―I
didn‘t know there were so many big snakes on that river.‖ ―Could it be a little warmer on Mt. Fuji?‖ This
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process will be especially important for drams where travelers will be spending extended periods of time.
Design Kits. Serious dram enthusiasts, researchers, and dram experience developers will want to have a
great deal more control over their environments and will need kits that are scaled down versions of the
programs used by developers of entire dram worlds. Such programs will either allow the development of
environments quicktime, using generations of virtual characters to create their own spaces and objects
(ensuring a natural range of physical diversification), or will provide walk-through / live-in development
systems where design choices can be tested and modified.
One important group of dram enthusiasts will be history buffs: the sorts of people who devote much of
their free time to researching and re-enacting historical events. For example, I could see a group interested
in daily life in ancient Minoa walking through rough outs of environments, accompanied by virtual
characters who represent various expert points of view on food preparation, class divisions, and so forth.
What points of view actually work in the environment? If a city folded mysteriously, why? All of this can
be put into the context of multiple scenarios developed by enthusiasts and played out quicktime by
characters and step-by-step by travelers. Dramatic? For many thousands of people, yes.
Mixed-Use Kits. Many physical dram environments, like the early cities I just mentioned, will be used
for purposes other than entertainment, and do-it-yourself designs kits will need to take that into
consideration. For example, a group may be putting together an arctic adventure ―BeneathThePole‖. With
so many people having access to information about this part of the world, it will be important for
developers to get certain key elements of the environment ―right‖. If they are going to all this trouble to
put accurate information into practice, why not develop an educational module at the same time. If the
dram has full sensory capabilities, it can also be used to help train people going into that environment for
―real‖.
Of course it will be important for all of these do-it-yourself objects and spaces to be plug-and-play, with
open standards allowing enthusiasts to put their Wild West characters on a ship to the Arctic. Think it‘s
silly? Just ask someone who takes lots of story development meetings in Hollywood :).
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FLOW IN DRAMS
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Introduction

The Nature of Flow

The term "story flow", or just "flow", is my way of getting at a relationship that is important to all stories,
but critical when it comes to drams: the relationship between the story visitor and the story world.
I use the term “story visitor” as a generic way of referring to all story listeners, readers, and audience
members in all story forms except for Virtual Drama, where I use the term “traveler”. In the same way, I
use “storyteller” to refer to the authors, directors, or conveyers of stories.
Most of us are familiar with words like plot and scene, chapter and episode. Those who create or analyze
stories for a living talk about storyline and backstory, narrative vs. action, segways and transitional
scenes. All of these terms have to do with the structure of a story –– what kinds of events take place, in
what order, and how presented. This is the craft of storytelling: to involve the story visitor in your tale
without calling attention to construction or technique.
―Story Flow" is slightly different. Think about what you do when you read a novel at the beach. First of
all, you chose to read it, perhaps because you like mysteries and you enjoy the work of this particular
author, or because you found it in a trash can on the way to the beach. You settle into your beach chair,
examine the cover, read the jacket blurb, think about your previous experience with the author and these
characters. You open the book and get comfortable, adjust the beach umbrella to give you optimum light.
―Well, maybe I need to move the chair closer to the water.‖ Finally, you settle in to reading, at first
distracted by activities on the beach, and then begin to focus as your visualizing fully kicks in and you
become engrossed in the book. As you read, you pick out situations that are familiar, skip boring parts,
are pulled entirely out of the story as someone walks very close to your chair and burps loudly. As you
read, your mind may conjure up images of Gothic mansions and people in Victorian clothing, but your
images are likely to be different than those of the storyteller.
This relationship between the story visitor –– you in your beach chair surrounded by beach-goers and the
story world created by the storyteller –– is dynamic. It changes from moment to moment, and even differs
each time you visit a particular story, either because you have changed or because the conditions around
you have changed –– not the story itself. It Flows.
A Definition. "Story Flow" is the dynamic relationship between story visitors and the story world. It
includes all those events which influence a story visitor‘s reactions to a story –– before, during, and after
the story experience.
If you think about it, story flow is the process that is used by storytellers as they create stories. As they go
along, they imagine telling their story to a particular audience – to themselves, or to their friends, or to
millions of action-adventure film fans.
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At any particular point in a story, the storyteller predicts (consciously or "un") how the "target" audience
will respond, and edits/revises the story to alter that effect. With stories acted out ―live‖ for story visitors,
the accomplished storyteller can gauge the mood, attention span and interests of the audience on the spot,
and can make adjustments accordingly. Less malleable story forms tend to use third parties (editors,
agents, critics, focus groups) to help the storyteller adjust flow to achieve the best possible story visitor
experience and response.
For stories created at considerable cost and intended for very large audiences –– as in wide-release films –
– story flow is tested explicitly at many stages of the story creation process.
This includes:
- Story development (―I don‘t want to see another alien invasion comedy script cross my desk in
my lifetime.‖),
- Pre-story-experiences (effects of advertising and other marketing on the expectation and pre-sets
of the audience),
- Story-interaction experiences (measurements of moment to moment physical audience reaction to
the story such as GSR, retinal scan, cortical activity mapping),
- Post-experience responses (post-story focus groups, questionnaires, word of mouth, and so
forth.).
When a story is going to cost financiers more than the GNP of a small country to produce, careful
examination of flow becomes very important indeed.

How This Section Will Proceed

To be able to clarify what I mean by story flow, and to show how flow works in types of stories most of
us experience on a regular basis (sorry, epic poets), I‘ll begin by taking a look at the process of flow in
some current story forms – oral tradition, written, acted-out, and interactive.
Hopefully this overview will give you a feel for some of the issues and problems surrounding story flow,
and will prepare you for a more detailed look at the process of flow in drams.
Following ―Flow in Stories‖ will come chapters covering the dram flow process itself, including pre-story
decision making, the actual story experience, post-story evaluation, and units and patterns of story flow.
Some of this detail will primarily interest those who are looking at the possibility of creating drams and
will bore the rest of you to tears. Those doing research in specific aspects of interactive story flow may
find it all a bit sketchy.
So it goes.
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Flow in Stories
Before we start a detailed look at the process of flow in drams in the next chapter, let's examine how story
flow works in some current popular story forms—oral, written, acted-out, and interactive. I‘m doing this
partly to clarify what I mean by story flow and partly to show that workable flow-handling solutions have
been devised in all storytelling forms.

Story forms to be examined

- Oral Tradition Stories (e.g. campfire, dinnertable, bar room)

- Written Stories: Short Story, Novel
- Acted Stories: Theater, Film, TV
- Interactive Acted Stories: Children‘s Theater, Interactive Theater, Improvisation
- Reality TV Stories
Note that I decided to add “Reality TV” to the other, longerl-established story forms because the sampling
and storytelling techniques used in crafting Reality TV “stories” from recordings of the “real” lives of
participants are directly related to Virtual Drama in the sense that the extensive digital sampling involved
should provide enough material to develop automated characters.

Oral Tradition Stories

Oral (or campfire, or dinnertable or bar room) stories are verbally transmitted tales which help to bond a
family, community, or "tribal" group by allowing participants to share memories, lessons, values,
warnings, or future fantasies –– using the story form as a mechanism. These stories are so much a part of
the fabric of human conversation that we often don't think of them as "stories" at all –– usually reserving
that term for formal storytelling situations.
However, stories told in this way are certainly the basis of all other storytelling forms, and we find
techniques used in this form popping up in various later forms –– especially ones where interaction
between storyteller and audience is permitted or desired.
Informal oral stories have one principal storyteller (although several people may act as storytellers in a
given session), with story visitors filling in details or making comments along the way –– since they often
already know the story, or know the individual(s) about whom the story is being told. These stories are
likely to be part truth, part fiction. ―Grandma Maeko stops lecturing you kids when Uncle Ichiro is around
because he knew her when everyone in the village called her ‗Teta the Tart‘.‖
Formal oral stories are more likely to be told around a campfire, at a meeting, or during religious services,
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and may well separate the storyteller from story visitors by placing the storyteller physically higher than
visitors or with different lighting. There are one or more designated storytellers, and the purpose of the
storyteller is likely to be didactic or inspirational. The handing down of the oral history of a family or
tribal group falls into this category.
Oral stories vary wildly in length - from the passing anecdote about "the time Aunt Sarah ate the angel by
mistake" to all-night tales of bravery by Milla, the storyteller, to a multi-day post-death event where
everyone in a town shares memories about the deceased –– pro and con.
The ―intention‖ of the storyteller may be to instruct, to get story visitors to laugh, cry, or cover their eyes
in fright. The teller‘s effectiveness in carrying out this intention is based, to be sure, on his/her general
skill at telling stories, but other factors –– covering the whole story flow process –– are involved. For
example, if the storyteller inadvertently insults story visitors at the beginning of a story, or if rain seems
imminent during an outdoor session, visitors are likely to be so distracted that they will have difficulty
focusing on the story.
This is why professional tale tellers make sure that visitors know what to expect from them, usually
through word-of-mouth or self-promotion. If a group knows that Hitanga scares everyone‘s pants off
telling stories about the anger of the gods, they know how to prepare themselves (and their children)
emotionally for what is about to take place.
Storytellers also influence story visitor expectations in the beginning of a story by setting the tone,
rhythm, and ―genre‖ of a story. A humorist will make sure to get a laugh immediately as a signal to story
visitors that it‘s OK to laugh. Preparing visitors‘ expectations also aids the quasi-therapeutic intent of
many formal oral stories by giving them fair warning that there will be events that may evoke certain
emotions and that they won‘t be the only ones experiencing those emotions.
Different kinds, or ―genres‖, of oral stories have different presentation requirements and intend to create
different effects in story visitors:
Family Stories. Tales about the ups and downs of family foibles and relationships. Conveys the
culture and requirements of family life. Tends to use lots of tension releases, e.g. laughter.
Romantic Stories. ―How Rachel met Ralph and tricked him into proposing.‖ These stories lay
out social requirements for courting/mating and detail what happens if those requirements are
disobeyed. Can be sad or comical. Tend to be directed to families and a female audience.
Occupational Stories. Told mostly at gatherings of people in the same profession. They use
details/language specific to the profession. ―So we sent the kid to get 25 feet of #6 shoreline!‖
Bonds teams and diffuses tensions.
Fables. Stories that use animals, objects, and non-human characters of all kinds to convey
messages about a whole range of human activities. Allows story visitors to distance themselves a
bit from the characters so that the message is easier to swallow.
Adventure Tales. Tend to recount exploits of explorers, heroes, and others who have courage (or
villainy) greater than most. Used to inspire or as a form of group indoctrination. Lots of action,
dramram details, really bad weather, monsters, and impossible deeds.
Mysteries. Characters are put in situations where they have to solve a problem ―or else‖. Story
visitors become involved, at least mentally, in solving the problem, which is often ―who done
it?‖. This is a wonderful vehicle for teaching specific problem solving skills.
Horror Stories. The intent is to scare visitors without physically harming them. The key here is
to set mood with voice and carefully crafted images and sounds. Sudden changes in voice help to
provide the shock/scare. These stories convey warnings about dealing with the unknown by
yourself, or disobeying the gods. The extremely practical effect in a family context is to keep
naturally inquisitive children from wandering off into dangerous territory and coming to harm.
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Humorous Stories. Although many stories use humor for tension release, humor stories are
intended to produce laughter or amusement throughout. They take group mores, expectations, and
values and stand them on their head –– which produces laughter in story visitors. This is a
difficult story form because what a group finds funny one day may be in poor taste / blasphemous
the next.
Religious Stories. Gods and Devils. Saints and Sinners. Values and expectations of religious
beliefs have traditionally been conveyed through oral stories, since general literacy is a recent
phenomenon. These stories are intended to be inspirational, awe-inspiring, or to provide rationale
for particular beliefs. The storytelling technique depends on local religious customs and
requirements.
Children’s Stories. The vocabulary and subject matter are specifically aimed at particular age
groups. They tend to be highly didactic, and are often acted out, with lots of character voices by
the storyteller.
Speculative Stories / Science-Fiction. These stories are explanations of ―what-if‖ that are not
quite horror and not quite religious, and may involve present or future technology. ―What if this
campfire is really a visitor from another world?‖.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

Oral tradition storytellers normally have a fair amount of advance information about story visitors, about
their likes and dislikes, personal histories and taste in stories. They will also have immediate information
about community events –– such as deaths, births, weddings, and celebrations –– that allow the storyteller
to make adjustments ―on the fly‖. To be able to make these adjustments more or less seamlessly, oral
storytellers have a repertoire of techniques they can rely on for transitions, including devices that can
totally alter the direction of the story. ―But in another part of the kingdom....‖
Oral storytellers also have many techniques for directing and controlling the attention of story visitors --
including changing voice volume, tone, and accent, directly addressing story visitors and relating story
events to well-known events in the community.

Written Stories

Although the tradition of the oral storyteller as a conveyer of important social history, attitudes, and
beliefs is a long one, the explosion in specialized professions surrounding the development of cities made
it important to keep more permanent records by using markings on more-or-less permanent media like
stone or clay. Since most of this information was considered proprietary to the ruling class or to particular
trades, only a few people were allowed to learn the meaning of the markings –– so that the first detailed
writing may have functioned as encrypted communication.
Since societal leaders had always controlled the stories which convey the history of their culture, it
seemed natural to use writing as a way to both store those stories and to attempt to control their content
and dissemination. Gradually the number of people who had access to reading and writing expanded, and
so did the subject matter of stories, extending to the lives of the gods and those demigods: adventurers,
heroes, and the ruling class.
However, it wasn‘t until the great explosion in literacy in the late 1800‘s that large numbers of people
began to have access to reading and writing in the West. They had a real thirst for learning about other
people‘s lives, and so written story forms –– often serialized in newspapers –– became quite popular.
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Key to the effectiveness of written stories is the human ability to visualize events which are not part of
our actual experience, and to then translate written words into these fantasy images. Quite a bit of the
educational process in literate cultures is devoted to this sort of visualization. Written stories tie the long-
established oral tradition of visualizing events to the written word. An important part of modern written
stories is the description of the thoughts, feelings, and other internal states of characters –– a process
difficult to accomplish in oral and acted out story forms.
The two written forms I‘ll talk about here are the short story, a condensed form close to the oral campfire
tradition, and the novel, a much more detailed psychological/sociological form which is like a collection
of stories about a particular person, family, event, or culture.

The Short Story

The short story is a fictional written story form which ranges in length from a single page to 60+ pages, at
which point it is often called a ―novella‖. Short stories, which are usually published in magazines,
newspapers and story collections, tend to follow a single situation involving a small number of major
characters. Sometimes the same characters will be followed through a number of short stories.
The short story is often read at a single sitting, which satisfies the story visitors‘ desire for knowing how
the story ―comes out‖. It is physically easy to hold and to carry since it is often in a magazine (and was
often serialized in newspapers), so it can be read in a large variety of physical locations, including on
mass transportation.
Both the internal and external lives of characters are considered in some detail, so that the story visitor
(called ―the reader‖) gets the impression that they know the characters quite well.
From the very beginning, the short story uses mood, tone, and intriguing situations to ―grab‖ the visitor.
Since there are usually only one or two main characters, storytellers tend to give us a great deal of detail
about their inner (thoughts, dreams, fantasies) and outer (dress, physical characteristics, activities) lives,
so that story visitors come to think of them as people they know quite well.
There is also a tendency for short stories to deal with contemporary events in fictionalized form, which
immediately engages the visitor who follows this sort of events. Whenever there is a major scandal or
well publicized murder, large numbers of stories with similar themes and characters tend to find their way
across editor‘s desks.
Because the major characters are painted in so much detail in a short story, very successful characters
tend to find their way into series of stories –– especially in the mystery, sci-fi, action-adventure, and
romance genres..

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

The placement of short stories in magazines (and, originally, serialized in newspapers) makes it
particularly easy for the story visitor to become distracted, which forces the storyteller to focus on
keeping visitor attention moment-to-moment during the story. One technique is to provide enough
background information early in the story so that the story visitor will know enough about the characters
to begin to predict their behavior. This requires brevity in the description of characters, and so metaphor
and comparison are often used. ―He was as energetic as a lump of coal.‖ ―Her face was entirely wrinkle-
free, which implied a serenity and a naivete she would have found laughable.‖
To be able to make rapid jumps and twists in the story narrative, and to control flow, the storyteller takes
on the voice of a guide who is, in most short stories, quite trustworthy. That guide can be relied upon to
provide or withhold crucial information –– all in the interest of making the story more interesting to the
visitor. It will be important for Virtual Drama to find ways to replace this voice: with actual guides, with
reliable ―sources‖, and with mechanisms to control flow; otherwise the story experience could becomes
 Virtual Drama | 139

an aimless trek into an unknown forest –– exciting for some, but boring and frustrating for most.

The Novel

The novel is arguably western civilization‘s major contemporary written fictional form. It explores the
complex psychological, sociological and historical factors that cause a person, a group, or a society to be
who/what they are. They range in length from 150-600+ pages.
Novels tend to show the inner and outer lives of a few major characters in multiple situations ––
sometimes spanning generations or centuries in the process –– against a detailed background of places
and secondary characters. This makes them such ideal repositories for information about the daily lives of
people from a particular country, class, and age that historians sometimes use novels to fill in information
that is missing from reliable primary sources or has been misrepresented by official historical sources.
The great length of novels means that story visitors tend to read them one segment at a time. Partly for
this reason, storytellers purposely break up novels into sections called ―chapters‖.
Storytellers try to relate visitors‘ lives to the world of the story by offering explanations and comparisons.
Since understanding and relating to other people is probably the major human activity, the inner life of
characters can be quite involving –– either through familiarity (―That sounds just like my Uncle Tomu.‖)
or dissimilarity (―What a peculiar guy.‖).
This protracted exposure to the inner life of characters means that well-drawn characters may reveal more
of themselves than do story visitors‘ friends and relations. This makes the novel a major source of
―objective‖ information about the psychology of others –– for good and ill.
Another standard approach is to allow the third person narrator –– the voice of the storyteller –– to make
comments about the characters. ―Aram was a third generation Kramuzzi on his mother‘s side, which
meant that villagers negotiated with him with one hand guarding their pockets.‖ This approach allows
storytellers to make political, social, and psychological comments about a wide range of human
institutions and beliefs.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

Because novels are often as much about the psychology of a time and place as about the story of its
characters, a great deal of background information tends to be given –– more than most story visitors can
absorb. This will make novels –– and especially novel series –– important sources of information for
drams because they provide enough data from which to generate automated characters and situations. In
terms of flow, the novel allows the story visitor to wander through, picking up bits of details as they go
along. Some novels more or less require that the story visitor have pre-training in the culture/class of the
period. And, the story visitor would be quite lost in a novel without the friendly, nudging voice of the
guide to point the way.
Of course, the extensive development of the inner life of characters is the hallmark of the novel as a story
form, and I expect that what I call character surfing/hitching/diving to be important aspects of Virtual
Drama as a form. These features certainly introduce complexity into the pattern of flow, but here too, the
novel offers us some guidance. Provide information in carefully managed chunks.

Acted-Out Stories

It‘s natural for the oral tradition storyteller to use a number of different voices when portraying the
 Virtual Drama | 140

characters in a story. To differentiate them a bit more, s/he might put on an article of clothing or use some
personal item, like a smoking pipe or a barrette. A natural evolution of this process is to have more than
one person acting out the story (actors). Character differentiation is easier this way, stories can be longer,
and the storyteller doesn‘t have to be the person acting out the story –– which allows people who are very
good at making up stories, but not so good at performing them, to act as storytellers.
The most basic acted-out stories are performed live (theater), and are repeated again and again in almost
exactly the same way, although often with different actors. Acted-out forms which are captured on
electronic media (film, TV) have the advantage of being able to be recorded many times –– with the
―best‖ bits of performances chosen for the final product –– and can then be copied and shown to an
enormous number of people. Film and TV also have the advantage of being able to show story visitors the
locale that the storyteller had in mind.

Theater

In theater stories, the storyteller writes down the story, including the words of the characters (―dialogue‖),
general setting, and sometimes, specific directions for movement, emotion, and other physical and
psychological events –– all collected in a manuscript (a ―script‖). The written theater story is then
rehearsed by people (―actors‖) who are going to play characters, sometimes under the supervision of a
director. Story visitors, who often pay to watch the performance of the story, will expect the actors to give
a close approximation of the actual verbal and non-verbal behavior of the characters without consulting
the script, and to adhere to the words of the script.
Theater stories are usually performed indoors, with artificial lighting and constructed settings that are
more symbolic than realistic. In modern theater spaces, visitors are expected to sit quietly throughout the
story, unless laughter, applause, or surprise are signaled by the content of the story itself –– or unless it is
a specialized theater application such as children‘s theater or improvisation (see below).
Because the cost of producing theater stories is relatively low compared to other forms of acted-out
media, a large number of people worldwide are involved in creating, producing, designing and
performing theater stories –– including many who don‘t do so for financial reward.
The scripts of popular theater stories are published so that many different presenters can act them out.
Extremely famous theater stories may receive hundreds of such reenactments every year.
Probably the most involving aspect of theater stories is the fact that they are presented with live actors for
live story visitors. The three-dimensional reality of people acting out a story is directly linked to the oral
story tradition and reinforces a sense of community.
Visitors who are experiencing their first theater story often describe it as thrilling –– whether or not they
enjoyed or understood the story itself. The ―energy‖ they experience coming off of the stage seems
different than recorded story forms such as film or TV.
Visitor interaction/involvement in non-interactive theater stories includes actors speaking directly to the
visitor and waiting until visitors finish reacting (e.g. laughing) before continuing. There is also a strong
tendency for the actors of theater stories to slightly modify their rhythm, speed and level of activity in
response to the ―feeling‖ that a group of story visitors gives back to them.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

Because theater is a three dimensional form, it must be both seen and heard for visitors to be able to
follow the story. This means that lighting, sound, the speed and meaning of speech must be accessible to
the story visitor. In many drams this will require some form of ongoing sensory adjustment.
The characters in Virtual Drama, as in theater, must be appropriately cast. You might say ―Well, of
 Virtual Drama | 141

course,‖ but there is a particular situation that makes ―casting‖ extremely important, and that‘s where a
story visitor (traveler) is playing a role. I argue for automatic adjustment of traveler speech, movement,
and appearance into character-appropriate forms (―simchar‖) because it is important to maintain the
illusion of a story world. If you‘ve been in situations where people are attempting to role-play anyone
other than themselves you‘ll recognize the problem here. The minute someone totally inappropriate enters
a story space, the flow is broken.
Theater is also quite good at selecting a few events to represent the entire world of the story. In time-
limited drams, similar tactics will prove useful.

Film

Film stories are one of the world‘s major social activities: provided by a global industry that employs
hundreds of thousands of people. Films are fictional stories that are written down, and then performed by
actors –– as in theater –– but they are recorded electronically by a team headed by a director in such a
way that they can be distributed, replayed, and viewed widely; their usual length is 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hrs,
although the ―short‖ film may last just a few minutes.
Films can also be edited electronically, which means that the director can record (film) actors a number of
times and then stitch the ―best‖ bits of the performances together. This allows film stories to be recorded
in settings that are true/realistic for the story, to add elements that don‘t exist (such as backgrounds,
characters, characters‘ thoughts, sound effects or a musical score), and to provide unusual views of actors
(such as closeups) and places (such as aerial views) that maximize emotional impact for the story visitor.
In a way, all of these special capabilities represent an attempt to bring the story visitor inside the story ––
making explicit what visitors might imagine themselves if the story were presented as a novel or a short
story.
Once a story is recorded, it is copied and then electronically projected in a darkened space onto huge
screens –– so that everything is many times normal size for story visitors.
Except for outbursts of laughter, sobbing, or fright, film story visitors have no obvious interaction with
the story. Internally, it‘s a different matter. Since all but the youngest of film visitors have watched
thousands of hours of films –– much of it on TV screens –– they are constantly evaluating the
performances, the settings, the ―realism‖, the special effects. As they apply the events of the film to their
own lives, they often experience a roller-coaster ride of emotions. If they are bored, they may survey
nearby audience members in the dark or plan the rest of the evening. In ―dating‖ situations, hand-holding
and touching may so totally overwhelm the visitors that they may not remember the film at all.
Film stories also use the entire range of classic storytelling techniques to engage the visitor –– directly
addressing the visitor; having a major character narrate the story in campfire-story fashion; gradually
introducing major characters so that visitors can become used to them. An extremely effective technique
used by film story creators is using music to build tension and emotion directly in the audience. This
technique was introduced when films had no sound capability, and was so successful at producing
emotional responses –– even in situations where the film action wasn‘t particularly well executed –– that
the technique was carried over when films acquired sound.
Film can also approximate the inner life of characters by portraying dreams and inner thoughts, which
brings it closer to the function of the novel.
All in all, film storytellers strive to convince visitors that they are actually present as the story is taking
place.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

 Virtual Drama | 142

Film offers the story visitor the experience of actually ―being there‖, whether ―there‖ is a 13th century
castle or a civilization that lives a galaxy away. Film provides enough details to allow for this experience
without overwhelming the story visitor. Since dram travelers will ordinarily pick their own way through
stories –– nudged along by guides, story characters and other travelers –– this wouldn‘t seem to be a
problem. However, since many drams are likely to double as educational experiences, there may be a
tendency to load dram spaces with as many authentic details as possible, and to have built-in stories dwell
on those details.
Film stories also allow the story visitor to follow the action directly and close-up –– abilities travelers will
expect to see repeated (in some way) in drams. This adds an additional layer of complication to drams,
which may directly affect the relationship between visitors and characters. For example, if visitor Huan
Yue is experiencing the TaleOfThePhoenix dram, she may want to focus carefully on the facial reactions
of a particular character, and will gesture for close-ups which might be displayed directly in front of her.
This display alters her attention and directly affects her perception of the story space. The ability to
handle this sort of flow problem adeptly will mark the difference between drams as
novelty/game/voyeurdom and drams as a true story form.

Television

Fictional television (TV) stories are prepared in basically the same way as film –– although they tend to
be one quarter to one half the time length. They are transmitted electronically directly into the story
visitor‘s home by wireless transmission or cable and projected onto enclosed screens which range in
diameter from six inches to wall size. Many homes contain several such TV viewers, each of which can
be receiving a different story.
TV stories are available 24 hours a day and can be recorded on home machines for later replay. They are
presented via electronic frequencies called ―channels‖ along with news and non-fictional stories. On some
major channels the presentation of TV stories is largely funded by showing advertisements, which
interrupt the flow of the stories several times per half hour. Other channels are ―subscribed‖ to directly by
story visitors who rent the use of the channels on a monthly basis and are interrupted less frequently by
promotional messages.
Story visitors watch TV stories throughout their homes, in public waiting areas (such as airports), and
even in automobiles –– normally not including the driver. Because TV stories are such a part of the flow
of daily life of much of the global info world, story visitors have developed techniques for accomplishing
various tasks –– cooking, eating, doing homework, brushing the dog, making love –– while watching TV.
TV stories are watched by such a large percentage of the population of many countries that their
characters and situations become a widespread topic of conversation shortly after their presentation,
which gives them enormous influence in the development of culture. TV storytellers often complete the
information loop by telling stories that examine current societal trends, issues, and events.
This influence has been diluted somewhat in the U.S. by the proliferation of specialized channels, by the
use of the remote control which permits rapid switching (―surfing‖) from channel to channel, by
competitive scheduling that makes it difficult for story visitors to know when their favorite programs will
be shown, by the availability of films for home play, and by the introduction of ―Reality TV‖.
The TV story visitor is normally seated in a chair, and, since the story is being transmitted into the home
(into any conceivable sensory environment), s/he may be simultaneously involved in any number of other
activities. TV visitors use a remote control device to switch from story channel to story channel. They can
also adjust sound volume, picture characteristics, and can physically move the TV receiver to enhance
viewing.
Since TV stories in the U.S. tend to be interrupted by 8+ minutes of advertising or promotional messages
 Virtual Drama | 143

per half hour of programming, TV visitors have a strong tendency to use this time to use the remote
control to see what is playing on other channels, to go to other rooms to perform chores or gather food, or
to converse with each other.
Although recent TV stories have set up online discussion groups to allow story visitors to communicate
directly with actors and writers, and Reality TV programs use story visitors to vote participants out of the
story, there is no direct involvement between TV stories and story visitors.
However, since TV programming is heavily based on the requirements of advertising and marketing, the
subject matter, characters, and settings of TV stories tend to be based on who is most likely to be viewing
at a particular time of day, and which subgroup of those viewers are of greatest interest to marketers. The
TV stories themselves therefore tend to reflect the lives, desires, and fantasies of the marketed-to-visitor
subgroups, with special emphasis in the U.S. on 18-24 year olds.
TV stories also tend to involve visitors by having the same characters placed in stories every week ––
either in new story situations or in re-plays of stories. The most popular TV stories will be replayed for
years and may have character voices translated into many different languages.
Some TV story characters have been seen so frequently, and so reflect the lives (or fantasy lives) of story
visitors that they become members of the visitors‘ extended families.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

In some forms of drams, travelers will have all sorts of distractions –– from fellow travelers chattering
away on dedicated channels, to the inner and outer life of characters, to that coffee mug that is (literally)
calling out to be picked up. TV stories exist in this sort of climate. They use redundancy –– especially in
post advertisement segments –– as well as clearly defined characters and situations, to keep the story
visitor focused.
Since a one-hour TV series can produce several hundred hours of viewing over several years of ―life‖,
they also offer one model for keeping viewers coming back –– strong, identifiable characters, clear
situations, and more-or-less definite conclusions at the end of each episode.
TV ―Soap Operas‖ show that by adding a host of secondary characters, a story can follow a few
characters throughout most of their lives. Story visitors feel that they ―know‖ and identify with the
characters, even though the range of situations the characters become involved beggars the imagination.

Interactive Acted-Out Stories

(Children’s Theater, Interactive Mystery Theater, Improvisation)

In many story forms the story visitor is ―assumed‖ to be present by the storyteller, so that even in
situations, like theater, where the storyteller can observe the visitor, any actual alteration of the story in
response to the visitor will be highly impractical. Interactive story forms assume that the story visitor will
be actively involved in some way, and go about trying to control/limit/direct the visitor in various ways.
The more freedom the story form offers the story visitor, the more ―visitor handling‖ goes on.

Children’s Theater

Modern Children‘s Theater developed, as much as anything, out of parents‘ desire to find an activity that
would engage children while they visited the market, bazaar, or local mall. It involves pre-scripted stories
 Virtual Drama | 144

which use carefully guided audience participation –– including direct interaction with characters, visitors
questioning characters, and inclusion of visitors in the story itself. The stories tend to be educational and
moralistic, and rely heavily on fairy tale, myth, picture stories for children, and common childhood
pleasures and fears. The actors use music, mime, puppets, imaginative costumes and props, plus a great
deal of enthusiasm to keep their young visitors in their seats. After the story is over, young story visitors
often get to meet the actors, both as a way of bonding with the troupe and as a way of helping the
youngest visitors distinguish between real and fantasy worlds.
Children are sometimes allowed into the theater space well before the beginning of the story so that they
can get used to the environment and ―settle down‖. Normally children are separated from accompanying
adults after tickets are collected, and have the option of using theater seats or lying/squatting on pillows
on the floor of the theater space.
Typically, presenters will engage children‘s attention by using music to begin the story. One or more
guide characters (perhaps a ―good‖ guide and a ―bad‖ guide) will then lay out –– and often practice –– the
nature of the expected visitor participation. ―And when the Evil Prince comes out what are you going to
say?‖ ―Booooo.‖ Guides also introduce the topic of the story to children, ask and answer questions during
the story, and in general act as the major source of communication between story visitors and the story.
―How many of you have seen a castle?‖ ‖What does it look like?‖
Since many children‘s theater stories are already well known to the children, some children‘s theaters
send the parents of regular visitors the text of the story in advance along with a number of questions that
will allow it to become an educational experience.
Characters also will ask children which way another character went, or what a character said to them. The
sound volume of both actors and musicians is kept quite loud so as to ride over the inevitable whispering
and squirming of all but the most polite of young visitors.
Sometimes children are invited to participate in the story –– playing bits of scenery (say, trees) or
stationary objects, or minor characters. One way or another, the story visitors, with their eager, responsive
faces, willingness to risk involvement, and ability to perceive a lie hidden in a field of golden-spun words
can be more interesting to watch than the story itself.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

Many of the techniques used with children‘s theater can also be used for drams directed at children: lots
of carefully controlled interaction, musical numbers that allow for sing-a-long, broad character portrayal
and performance styles that force the attention of the young visitor, and vocabulary carefully tailored to
be age group appropriate.
This last technique –– appropriate vocabulary –– is likely to be useful for a much wider range of drams,
since many drams will take place in time periods other than the present. I see the charan language being
useful in directly translating unfamiliar vocabulary for the traveler (except in educational drams where
vocabulary expansion is the object).
It is also important for actors in children‘s theater to learn to not be distracted by the constant shifting,
murmuring, and comment-making of young visitors, and to directly ask them to be quiet when general
concentration is at stake. This is likely to be a useful technique for characters in drams where social
interaction is more interesting to certain travelers than the experience itself. I also see the widespread use
of ―quiet time‖ or putting children in a ―quiet space‖ as a device for handling obstreperous travelers. A
couple of gentle warnings and then ―whoosh‖, off you go into the quiet zone.

Interactive Theater

The story form I‘m calling Interactive Theater developed (in the U.S at least) as more and more actors
 Virtual Drama | 145

became interested in improvisation and more restaurants and bars wanted to increase off-night business
by mounting low-cost versions of dinner theater. The restaurants wanted some sort of performance that
would involve visitors before, during, and after the meal, and provide solid word-of-mouth that would
drive repeat business.
Interactive theater stories are partially pre-scripted, partially improvised, acted-out stories where story
visitors interact directly with characters, may influence the direction/outcome of the story, and/or may be
asked to solve some problem posed by the story.
The best known examples of these stories are mysteries where visitors become invited guests at the story
event, discuss what is happening with characters, try to solve the mystery, and eat a multi-course meal.
More elaborate versions involve spending several days immersed in the mystery environment –– which
might include trains, ships, or stately mansions.
In general, interactive theater stories require the actors to be able to improvise conversations with story
visitors based on their knowledge/instincts about the character, and to be able to lead visitors in and out of
the pre-scripted story at some signal from a facilitator or from other characters.
Story visitors come to the location of the story (often a restaurant), get their tickets, and receive a
brochure (a program) that lists the meal choices, the presenters, an overview of the story, and perhaps the
roles that visitors are expected to play.
Visitors are taken to some gathering place, where they interact with other visitors –– some of whom are
actually characters. A guide may introduce the entire story and the tasks that visitors are expected to
perform.
The story itself proceeds as though it were an actual event, e.g. a wedding or a funeral, with visitors
sometimes asked to move to different rooms, to eat, dance, sing, make toasts, and so forth. During the
event pre-scripted segments will be staged throughout the space by actors, who will then return to interact
with visitors.
Because there is so much interaction between characters and visitors, storytellers/directors tend to provide
enough additional character information to actors so that they can manipulate story visitors into: moving
where they want them to move; becoming more and more involved in the experience; and having
difficulty solving the mystery until the very end. Story visitors, for their part, often try to get actors to
―break character‖, try to get someone to divulge what is going to happen next, and may try to become
more a part of the story than they are supposed to.
The main interest visitors have in attending interactive theater stories is direct communication with
characters –– even if the main intention of some visitors is to trip up actors.
This means that actors must be prepared to answer any number of visitor questions ―in character‖, and to
know which answers will enhance story flow and which will disrupt or spoil the experience. They must
―become‖ the character. This is made easier by casting actors whose personalities/backgrounds are quite
similar to the characters.
It also means that story presenters have to carefully balance pre-scripted and improvised elements of the
story to make sure that visitors always have some new event to react to, and are able to interact with as
many characters as possible.
This intense (and quite natural) involvement, along with puzzle solving, allows the story experience to
seem to pass quite rapidly –– especially if the food and drink are at least passable.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

Interactive theater stories are partly pre-scripted and partly improvised, which is likely to be the situation
with drams until fully automated characters are developed. Overall timing and placement of important
 Virtual Drama | 146

events, keeping travelers directed toward key events, making sure that as many travelers as possible are
actively involved in the story, and establishing the reality of space/time –– these are all ties between
interactive theater and drams.
Another crucial similarity is that characters must have the ability to readily converse with travelers, not
only on topics directly related to the story itself, but also having to do with the place and time in which
the story takes place. This makes having stories set in the present particularly tricky, since characters will
be expected to have a ―natural‖ range of knowledge about current events.
The ―actors‖ must also be able to maintain character throughout the performance in interactive theater,
which in practice often means that directors prefer to use actors who are quite similar to the character in
personality. It is simply too difficult to role-play a character who is substantially different than oneself for
any period of time without making mistakes. (Which is why some film actors, in playing psychologically
demanding roles, try to stay ―in character‖ throughout filming.) In Virtual Drama, characters will need to
have their own personality and personal history to make 24/7 interaction with them believable.
Sometimes mystery theater stories allow story visitors to wander about throughout the story space,
whether that is a mansion, or a banquet room, or a small, quaint village. This means that storytellers must
be able to pinpoint the whereabouts of visitors, to have ways of redirecting them or calling them together

Improvisation

Improvisation is an ancient, acted-out story form in which the actors create the story as they go along.
Although serious dramatic uses of improvisation are used in psychotherapy, educational role-playing, and
actor instruction, the modern theatrical improvisation form tends toward comedy. In the comedy form,
some structure –– such as ―games‖ with specific rules –– is given, the audience provides characters,
situations, settings, etc., and the length of the improvisation is pre-set, with the exact conclusion point
determined by the actors or by a non-performing director. An evening normally consists of a number of 3-
5 minute improvisations, which use virtually no sets and ad hoc props and costume pieces.
Since the general nature of each improvisation is pre-set, it is possible for actors to do advance
preparation for possible suggestions by the audience. Professional improvisation companies often have
pre-set signals that allow for flow of material, for example, for introducing a new character, or switching
motivation when one particular approach is clearly not working.
Improvisation requires that individual actors be extraordinarily adept at: assuming the physical and verbal
attributes of multiple characters; understanding which characters will be familiar to story visitors; and
working off of audience response to re-shape the on-going performance flow.
Story visitors approach improvisation sessions with a great deal of enthusiasm. Often there will be banter
between visitors and ticket-takers. After visitors move into the performance space, there may be a
performer designated to ―warm-up‖ visitors by getting them to interact with each other. This person may
also solicit ideas that will be written down and later used in the improvisations.
Once the performance begins, visitors are expected to laugh at funny bits, to groan at bad jokes, and to
applaud at the end of each improvisation. They are usually asked to provide suggestions during the
performance, are sometimes referred to directly by actors, and may be selected to participate in the
performance itself.
All in all, story visitors have the impression that they are involved in the performance, although their
actual involvement is carefully circumscribed.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

In improvisation, actors practice reacting to different character situations, work on methods of ―feeding‖
 Virtual Drama | 147

other characters, and make themselves familiar with a wide range of current personalities and events.
Short-form drams are likely to be a lot like improvisation. ―Let me see a female bartender and a drunk
deal with a talking chipmunk.‖ If the dram program has a lot of stored, automated, personalities, it can
simply pull up the three characters, give them certain criteria, a time period, and a genre, and let them ―go
to it‖. If developers have devised formulas for material that ―should be funny‖, and better, have samples
of what the current travelers think is funny, characters can run through a huge number of situations, with
developers refining the formula models.

Reality TV

What are some major features of the story form?

Reality TV is a game-based story form in which groups of individuals who are often not performers in the
usual sense are put together in some space for an extended period of time, with most of their ―real-life‖
interactions recorded by camera crews. One-by-one, participants are eliminated from the group either by
voting for/against one other or by story visitors who phone in their preferences after watching carefully
edited segments on national/international TV.
Since people‘s lives are being examined directly, very little that occurs is ―dramatic‖ in current TV terms
(meaning conflict, problems, mating), so that teams of directors/editors ―mark‖ individual events as they
occur, select individual recorded segments, and build them into a story that is later shown to audiences.
Story visitors are drawn in primarily because as ―voyeurs‖ they can observe aspects of daily life that very
few people ordinarily see. Reality TV programs often set up general situations which are naturally
conflict based (adventures or competitions), or which place the real-performers in situations that peak the
interest of story visitors.
Reality TV programs which have engaging characters and situations create the same story visitor loyalty
as daytime soap operas, with visitors discussing individual story events around the office water cooler.
Except for Reality TV events where story visitors vote on which participants to eliminate, the experience
as presented to the sotry visitor is much like serialized TV dramas. Where there is intense, ongoing
conflict or some other intensely human predicament, story visitors are likely to relate events to their own
lives, since they have the (not altogether accurate) impression that they are viewing real lives.
Some story visitors may identify strongly with certain participants, and, as in any story situation where
that occurs, the effect of the story on them may be extremely strong.

What flow-handling situations might prove useful in creating Virtual Drama?

Reality TV offers a model for developing sampling-to-editing methods for drams, since producers take a
huge sample of recorded material and then try to define which events will be most interesting to ―target‖
story visitors week-to-week. They must define/redefine the story based on the perceived/measured
interests of those visitors.
In drams, definitions of what constitutes ―interesting‖ behavior are likely to be a bit broader than Reality
TV, since travelers will be spending substantially more time involved with characters, and since the target
demographic is somewhat wider.
Reality TV is developing techniques for 1) the selection of individuals best suited (psychologically) for
sampling –– including those most likely to produce certain types of dramatic results; 2) unobtrusive
filming; 3) making interventions that will help produce desired behaviors; 4) handling/storing/indexing
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massive amounts of sampled footage; and 5) adjusting sampling criteria on an ongoing basis.
Reality TV ―could‖ examine a number of other flow related issues for ―ghosted‖ drams by exposing test
groups of visitors to much larger amounts of sampled footage and allowing them to ―hop around at will‖
–– which has been done on a limited basis by giving visitors 24/7 access to certain cameras via the
Internet. It would also be quite interesting to have visitors be able to ask Reality TV participants what
they are thinking/feeling on some set schedule.
Above all, Reality TV has amassed large samples of observed behavior which could be used to create pre-
scripted, even automated, characters for early drams.
 Virtual Drama | 149

Story Flow in Drams

Introduction

We've just taken a look at the flow processes of several kinds of stories. While we're examining flow in
drams, it'll be helpful for you to think back to some of the flow handling problems of those story forms ––
and the way storytellers typically deal with them.

A Brief Review of the Dram Process

Just to refresh your memory, let's take a quick trip through the wonderful world of drams. Drams are story
experiences in which the story visitors (called ―travelers‖) are sensorily immersed in the story, sometimes
for long periods of time, and sometimes for purposes other than entertainment. Depending on the kind of
dram, travelers may be able to see, hear, touch, and physically move while in the story world, may
communicate with characters and other travelers, and may even be able to explore the senses, minds, and
histories of places, spaces, and characters. Many travelers will also be able to choose characters,
situations and settings –– and even create their own.
To be able to do all of this, the traveler will need:
- Some way of choosing the experience
- A method of being tested physiologically and psychologically -- both for sensory compatibility
and out of fear of lawsuits
- A process for gradually being immersed –– first into the physical world of the story and then into
the story itself
- Ways of navigating the story world and making choices
- Procedures for communicating with characters and other travelers inside the story
- Some way of de-immersing into the "real" world and storing interesting bits of the experience for
later use.

How this Topic Will Proceed

Since the relationship between the traveler and the storytelling environment ––flow–– is particularly
important for a new and intense story form like Virtual Drama, I'd like to take some time to take you
through the dram flow process one step at a time –– following the traveler from pre-story experiences
such as choosing the story, through interaction with the story world itself (in-story), and out into the
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world again (post-story). Each part of the dram flow process contains some element of interaction
between the traveler and the computer-mediated environment (not just the story itself), and directly
affects the feelings that travelers take with them when they remember the dram experience or tell their
friends about it.
After we‘ve run through an overview of the traveler‘s experience, we‘ll take a step back and look at entire
dram story experiences, using three general patterns of story flow, each accompanied by several brief
story premises.
You’ll notice some overlap in subject matter and content between the chapters on characters and
spaces/objects and these chapters about flow. In prior chapters I’ve tended to focus on criteria for
development. In these chapters on flow, I'm primarily taking the point of view of the traveler.

Pre-Story Flow

Scouting for Dram Experiences

Before travelers become involved in a story they are, of course, going to want to know "What am I getting
into". Since there are likely to be a large number of choices of drams, and many different ways of
"configuring" characters, situations, and settings, the traveler is going to expect help –– and not just from
advertising!
The Role of the Dram Assistant. The dram assistant -- the traveler's personal guide and intermediary --
will be of crucial importance to the traveler in actually navigating options, since the assistant will be able
to speak with the traveler directly, relying on extensive knowledge of ―what‘s out there‖ as well as having
quite a bit of experience with the traveler‘s likes, dislikes, and reactions to various drams. This means that
the dram assistant will be able to say, ―Oh, by the way, there‘s a new coffee shop mystery in that series
you like. They have five new roaster blends you get to sample, and if you let them know which blend you
like best and why, they‘ll put your name in a drawing and the winner will have a blend named after
them.‖
In helping the traveler choose stories, it will be important for the dram assistant to fulfill a number of
roles:
The dram assistant should be entirely independent of the marketers, sellers, and creators of
drams. This means that dram assistants need state-of-the-art protection against influence from
outside sources, and may well require that the company creating dram assistants be entirely
independent of any other dram-related concern.
The dram assistant should be knowledgeable about the likes, dislikes and prior experiences
of the traveler. If dram assistants have access to lots of information about the traveler (or a
family of travelers), it should be possible for them to look through available offerings worldwide
and to prepare suggestions, trial experiences and comments that are most pertinent to the traveler.
"You remember that underwater party you went to last year? Something similar is happening in
an underwater crater in Polynesia –– and the setting is live!" In this particular instance, the dram
assistant would know that the party is "sans clothing", and, after consulting guidelines set up by
adult family members, might "neglect" to mention it to younger family members.
The dram assistant should use detailed physical knowledge of a family. It should also be
possible to access public/published records about the physical requirements, safety, etc. of
particular drams and match them with family characteristics and requirements. The phrase "and
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15 people have broken at least one leg during this dram" – not likely to be featured as part of a
sales pitch –– could be the most important thing a traveler gets to know.
The dram assistant should be able to negotiate with dram-sale/rental for prices, features,
etc. Besides scavenging for interesting experiences, dram assistants could dicker for the best deal
available by running through thousands of available possibilities, comparing them with traveler
budget guidelines, and then negotiating with vendors on price and other payment options (such as
access to marketing information). It shouldn't be hard to see why independence from marketing
and sales influences is important here.
The dram assistant should have extensive privacy safeguards built in. If the dram assistant
has all of this information about a particular family, the temptation for marketers to try to access
it will be tremendous. Even more worrisome is the potential for political and social manipulation
–– including, of course, blackmail, greenmail, and tabloid exposure. Remember that the
automation of information gathering, analysis, and fact checking process allows for the rapid
dissemination and extreme localization of news – similar to the gossip network in a small town,
but much more insidious because of its permanence. ―Monroe Family Buys Cottage at Lake.
Dram Assistant Sees Mr. Monroe Two Nights Running with Babysitter. No Baby. More to
Follow.‖
The dram assistant should be highly configurable in terms of appearance, personality, etc.
The last thing you want is a dram assistant whose behavior constantly annoys you – ―he sounds
like Uncle Freddie during an asthma attack" –– or whose appearance isn't consistent with what
you consider "trusting". By allowing a number of options –– everything from total robot behavior
to a custom assistant who looks like your favorite Aunt Kafi –– the traveler will feel comfortable
enough to experiment with new and different experiences without constantly wondering whether
everything is safe.
Trial Experiences. People who use computer software or games are used to "trying it out" before they
buy –– either as a time-limited or feature-limited demonstration. In that way they get to see if the product
is exactly what they want. drams can be so immediate, so personal, and so intense that most travelers will
want to "get a taste" before they take the plunge –– especially for experiences that are long term, very
physical, high risk, or quite expensive. Demos can be gathered, scheduled, and provided by the dram
assistant, who, before the beginning of the demo, can give her input, and then pass off to the demo "sales
guide". I can also see networked series drams where the traveler plugs in to a story world which exists for
only a limited period of time [as in TV or film] and it functions as a free demo for a much more elaborate
paid dram experience.
The Sales Guide. Companies selling/renting dram experiences are going to want to put the best light on
the experience, and so I expect that they will use virtual character sales guides –– who may appear to fit
into the demo story world, but will be clearly there to emphasize the best qualities of the world, and may
have certain limited access to the traveler's preferences and bio and psych profiles. The most effective
sales guides are likely to be low-key, friendly characters who divert travelers from less-than-successful
story features such as that ―that little stomach upset problem‖.
Professional Reviews. Practically every town in the world that has a movie theater and a newspaper has a
local film reviewer or critic – not to mention the legions of online sites which perform this purpose.
Although I'd expect reviews of dram experiences to be a bit more global –– after all, it is a computer
medium –– there are still likely to be a number of reviewers, who will develop some sort of pecking order
based on 1)reliability 2)knowledge of the medium 3)independence from dram-related industries. These
reviewers (like today's software evaluators) will be an important part of the decision process, and I can
envision them being quoted by dram assistants as they are communicating with travelers. ("Vin Kraboko
rates the character interaction as excellent and unique. She says the edible soldier characters are…")
Word of Mouth. Friends and relatives are often the first people we go to when we are looking for a
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recommendation for something to do, something that's fun, or what to avoid. Internet mailing lists and
forums have extended that family considerably. Although the dram assistant could become a traveler's
major resource when choosing drams, word-of-mouth is still the most likely source of information on
unique, exciting, or "really awful" experiences.
Advertising. dram developers are likely to use every route they can to introduce new story experiences –
– including traditional advertising routes which might bundle a dram demo with contests and other
promotions. Besides the network-series "demos" I mentioned above, dram Centers (which would have
elaborate apparatus and powerful computers not likely to be found in the home) could be used as leading-
edge promotional devices –– much as "limited theatrical release" of film stories in New York, Los
Angeles, London, etc. is used for testing visitor receptivity and the effectiveness of advertising
approaches.
Direct Sales. In an increasingly interconnected and computer mediated world, customizing of products
and services becomes possible and desirable. By being able to tailor experiences for specific individuals
(or having individuals create their own experiences), travelers get exactly what they want, and the
marketer get satisfied customers. Virtual sales assistants from a particular dram developer might directly
contact travelers' dram assistants and try to convince them that the company's drams directly meet the
travelers' needs and budget. If the dram assistant thinks the "line" of experiences might be appropriate,
s/he mentions it to the traveler and makes arrangements for trials or demos.
Personal Experience Profiles. Since a particular group of travelers might have more than one dram
assistant, or might "trade up" for a new, more lifelike assistant, it will be quite useful for the traveler to
have a separate "personal experience profile", in which reactions (physiological or specified) to individual
bits of experiences are stored for use by the dram assistant and other agents. This database might contain
the all-important information that Doug Magami really, really hates and fears snakes, or that an early
relationship experience made him extremely antagonistic toward petite blonde women with green eyes.
Of course such a database must be carefully guarded from global eyes –– green or otherwise –– which
means that it probably should be developed by the same companies who create the dram assistants.

Selecting Specific Dram Features

Assuming that people‘s interest in drams will be at least as great as it is currently for films and computer
games, most potential travelers are going to know quite a lot about various dram producers, characters,
features, and price structures. Whether the traveler is talking about a prospective dram with the dram
assistant, bargaining with a sales guide during a trial experience, or answering an automated preference
checklist, there are likely to be a lot of choices. To show you the extent of customization possible within
drams, and to stress the need for virtual helpers like the dram assistant in managing choice options, let‘s
take a look at a few possible feature choices.
Choose the Length of the Experience. Not only is it important for travelers to schedule their own time,
but drams that are netted (simultaneously interacting with people all over the world) will also need to
reserve/expand computational resources to meet demand.
On a particular day, traveler Shana X may have only a half hour to spare. She might choose a
"standalone" dram experience in which she chooses characters and situations, the reason she wants to do
it (say, to blow off anger), and the amount of time she wants to spend. The dram director program then
custom designs an experience that will not only do everything she wants it to –– but will come to a
"natural" conclusion approximately 30 minutes after she enters it.
On another day, Shana may want to drop in on an existing community of virtual people –– over whom
she has no control whatsoever. She may need to schedule this well in advance, the way you would do if
you were visiting not-so-close friends. She visits, and an alarm of some sort tells her when she has five
minutes left so she can make her good byes.
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One of the more interesting aspects of experience length is how you go about telling the traveler that
"time is up". I'm expecting some ingenious solutions to this one –– especially from complex, equipment-
dependent experiences timed by the minute. They could have "trigger messages" delivered to characters
specifically designated to end experiences (as in comedy improvisation), or have an auditory/visual time
announcement apparent only to the traveler –– as in computer games. And there could be a background
character, or traveler designated signal (say, two seagulls flying by upside down) that says "time to go".
There is also a subtle, but important, conceptual/marketing aspect to time: the power of choice. It's one
thing to say "Here are 40,000 experiences that are different time lengths. Your dram assistant will help
you choose." It's quite another to say "You pick the characters and situations and we'll give you an
experience of any time length you want."
Choose the Number of Travelers at One Time. You may want to take the whole family into the
"Galapagos Explorer's Journey" dram, or you may want to use the "Principles of Nanotechnology"
interactive dram series as a starting point for discussion with a company full of employees spread all over
the world. Both of those drams require that travelers be able to communicate with one another (otherwise,
why have a group experience?) and be able to either experience the same thing at the same time, or to
share different things seen at the same time –– as in a mystery where a group of travelers have run off
through a mansion frantically looking for clues while maintaining communication with each other.
It will be important to offer group experiences –– especially in drams that are puzzle/action oriented ––
simply because travelers like to feel that they "aren't alone". Then we have the all-important dating
couples, whose patronage supports many acted-out story forms. The problem is that once you have more
than one person sharing a fully immersive story experience, the complexity from the developer's point of
view increases dramatically. You must provide simultaneous multiple points of view, plus some sort of
communication system. If you have a large number of travelers, it would be ridiculous to put them in the
same space (where they would see each other–– especially indoors), so you must provide some sort of
environment cloning mechanism, so that people who "should" see each other do, even though there are
actually a large number of people in the experience.
Since travelers are going to insist on experiencing drams together, the solution of "shared access"
problems can be considered a priority for dram developers.
Choose the Cost of the Experience. In a globally integrated and networked world filled with business
school graduates and entrepreneurs of all kinds, a number of pricing strategies for drams are likely to be
implemented. In drams which require extensive computing and equipment support, it will make sense to
charge by the minute/hour –– since, in any event, travelers will normally have to go to dram centers to
participate. Home-based experiences are likely to be sold as programs which provide the computationally
intensive aspects of the dram (such as settings) on some data storage medium, with updates of characters
and situation provided as-wanted via downloads. I expect to see the most innovative pricing structures
implemented in community-based drams –– where part of the cost of the experience might be donating a
certain amount of time to maintaining/building the story world. The dram assistant will be quite useful in
helping travelers filter through payment schemes (legitimate and bogus).
Choose Interface Equipment. Sensory equipment is likely to take the form of specialized physical
attachments –– until such time as direct neural interfaces can be safely maintained or until nanotech-built
room-like environments can be provided inexpensively. Travelers will be able to choose multiple
variations of senses, with successive generations of equipment bringing greater and greater levels of
"immersive reality". In an immersive story world where you are playing Peter Pan, it would be a shame to
not be able to fly.
The traveler will need to sort through various mobility options –– each of which will require slightly
different types of equipment. For example, the multi-directional treadmill is already with us, but ideally
we will need an apparatus which will allow someone to safely walk, sit, run, bound like a kangaroo and
fly –– all with appropriate kinesthetic or tactile feedback. Since all of this movement-enabling equipment
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needs to be directly interfaced with the story world, upgraded, maintained and insured, it's most likely that
specialized dram centers will be developed –– perhaps as an extension of exercise centers, which are
already filled with grasshopper-like electronic exoskeletons and treadmills.
Choose the General Level of Interaction and Involvement. Just how involved travelers choose to
become with characters and environments will be a function of the current level of technology, how much
they are willing to pay, and options offered by particular drams. I've broken down interaction choices into
a few obvious areas.
Interaction with Equipment. Types of equipment to be selected might include:
- Visual/auditory headgear (hopefully, non-cumbersome glasses or stocking-mask-like wrap-
arounds.)
- Tactile sensors for hands, arm movement, full body, and ―other purposes"
- Omni-directional treadmills for walking, running, crawling, etc.
- Exoskeleton apparati into which the traveler climbs (strapped in) to be able to fly, bound, kayak,
and perform even more difficult physical feats
- Force fields or nano chambers in which deformations in the physical space surrounding the
traveler replace equipment options. (The best possible option would be structures that build
themselves "just-in-time" before the traveler gets there.)
Involvement with Characters. Options could include:
- Ghosting only –– no interaction
- Interact with guide only
- Choose interaction with characters from a menu of possibilities.
- Interact verbally only with certain minor characters (the "poor cousin" setup)
- Interact fully with all characters except background characters (who may scoot away when you
approach of spreak to them).
- Surf characters (ride their senses)
- Hitch characters (move into their senses and thoughts)
- Dive characters (move into their senses, thoughts, and personal history)
Choose How the Traveler Appears to Characters. There are some additional character-involvement
choices that have to do with the role that travelers will play when interacting with characters. The role
might be:
- Non-existent. Characters unaware of traveler existence.
- Phantom. Traveler seen as ghost figures which are part of the world/belief system of the
character society.
- Tourist. Travelers come through in groups, but don't stay.
- Distant Relative. A cousin of a family in the character community
- Sales Person. Travels through on a regular basis, but never stays long.
- Quiet Resident. Little interaction with the community, but often seen.
- Active Resident. Traveler works ―somewhere else‖, but spends a lot of time in the community in
―non-work hours‖.
- Full Time Resident. Spends a fair amount of time in the story world. (In independent story
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worlds this will require that travelers create character doubles who continue to live in the story
world when travelers are off walking the non-virtual dog.)
Choose Level of Interaction with Spaces & Objects. An important part of the notion of the "reality" of
a story space has to do with whether travelers have the feeling that they can reach out and touch the walls,
ground, and objects. Some possibilities:
- No interaction, no walkthrough. Travelers have to jump from space to space.
- No interaction, walkthrough. Travelers get to walk naturally from room to room or from one
part of town to another, but don't get to touch or lift anything..
- Basic touch. Travelers are able to touch the surfaces of the story space and the objects, but not
move them. Frustrating? You bet, but it decreases complexity.
- Force touch. Travelers can push against walls and surfaces and they will feel "right".
- Designated object manipulation. Travelers can pick up key objects and examine them, or use
them in ways that are "realistic"
- Full object manipulation. Travelers can use most of the objects in the environment in a natural
way.
- Full touch. Travelers –– using exoskeleton-like equipment –– can sit on furniture, climb stairs,
stand on a ladder to move a painting, etc.
- Surf, hitch, dive spaces and objects. Travelers can choose to become a wall or an object ––
taking their point of view –– or dive into the history of an object –– an interesting approach for
mystery drams.
Choose Nature of Interaction with Other Travelers. As I've mentioned, communicating with other
travelers might be a major feature of drams –– at least up to the point where virtual characters can't be
distinguished from "real" ones. Let's take the situation where a couple of travelers are going to enter a
dram together. They might choose:
- To not communicate with each other (private time)
- To communicate only at certain times. (not during that harrowing ascent of Mount Spielberg)
- To be only able to communicate via selections from a "menu" on their navigation and
communication console
- To be able to communicate publicly within the world
- To have a private channel where they can communicate in ways not observable by virtual
characters or other travelers
- To have a communication system where they can speak to/see any number of other designated
travelers
- To have some way of viewing what another traveler is experiencing in the story world– meaning
that one traveler will be able to ―surf‖ another‘s senses.
- To have a virtual device where they can choose any of the above options
Choose Character Attributes. The ability to surf through TV channels has conditioned us to expect that
at any given moment we we will be able to find characters who interest us. Drams will ultimately offer
travelers the ability to choose their own characters –– or elements of characters –– from large arrays of
possibilities, including ―create your own from scratch". Here are a few:
Physical Appearance. The three most obvious character choice strategies are:
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- allow travelers to choose from groups of full-bodied characters

- let travelers put sample faces and bodies together in 3D.
- ask travelers what a character should look like. "Like actor Wilhelm Yagoda but more sinister
and with a mustache."
Personality. I'd expect to see some drams that ask the traveler for stereotypes ("happy, successful,
quiet‖) and others that go into quite a bit more detail. The selection of personality is also likely to
benefit from samples from fiction and from life ("like a combination of Little Red Riding Hood and
Hedda Gabler")
Level of Independence. I spent some time in the section on virtual characters introducing the notion of
"independent characters" who exist in their own world and aren't (strictly speaking) controllable by
developers or travelers. On the way to that lofty goal are several stages:
- totally pre-scripted words and actions
- personality pre-set, but words and actions taken from a changeable database
- has own personality, life history and sensory history, but can be controlled by "pushing preset
buttons" and can be moved about from place to place.
- a complete person within a specific community, but can be triggered
- a virtual person who cannot be explicitly controlled and is "visited" by travelers.
Choose Specialized Characters. Apart from the specifics of individual character appearance,
personality, level of independence and so forth, many drams will want to restrict traveler choices in
experiences which contain a number of virtual characters. One logical way to do that is to offer travelers
more options on major characters than on secondary or background characters or on functional characters
such as guides and angels.
Major Characters are likely to be available with the most options.
Secondary Characters, who have roles in the story, but aren't prominent, might be entirely
preset –– based on choices made for major characters (as an automatic way of providing variety),
or the traveler might be offered some limited array of choices
Background Characters will be preset in all but the most do-it-yourself of drams, since they
provide the time/place "flavor" for the story world.
Story Guides might:
- be a standard pair of characters (1 male, 1 female), especially in limited interaction drams where
the most intensive live communication is between traveler and story guide),
- allow for slight variations in physical appearance
- be a single standard character (chosen by the traveler) whose costume and accent changes from
story to story.
Angels. I expect that angels, like dram assistants, might be provided by separate sources from the
dram story worlds, since the function of the angel is to provide thorough physical (and sometime,
psychological) safety for the traveler. There are a couple of ways of going about this:
- provide a few choices of angels –– based on extensive research.
- have travelers take the time to design their own angels, and take responsibility for determining the
characteristics that are most likely to be effective "My angel is just like my second grade teacher,
Miss Killian. She was really wonderful and laid back, so when she got angry or concerned we
really sat up and took notice."
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Choose Places & Objects. Although most travelers will be interested primarily in choices of characters
and situations, some shorter drams, or those without heavy/expensive graphical detail, are likely to offer
travelers options within the natural range of environments expected in the story world. For example,
travelers to a 14th century Chinese village shouldn‘t be able to choose which kinds of automobiles to use.
Choose Rendering of Space. Early dram developers are likely to offer travelers some choice of level of
"rendering" of the graphics of an immersive world. For example:
- full 3D graphics with highly textured surfaces that change visual appearance appropriately based
on the traveler's distance from them
- 3D graphics with partially textured surfaces
- 3D graphics with flat (cartoony) surfaces
- 3D graphics with foreground images fully textured and background images flat in texture
- 3D graphics for foreground images, but 2D perspective graphics for distant images
Choose Nature of Interaction with Space. Most people don't think about "interacting" with a space. We
just "walk through the hallway" or "sit down on the couch". From the point of view of an architect or
interior designer, though, people are constantly interacting with spaces –– at least at the subconscious
level –– and will report feeling "cramped" or "lost" or "definitely uncomfortable" after leaving a
particular interior space. Part of this response has to do with the physical proportions of a space in relation
to the kind of space required by particular individuals/cultures, but some spaces are actually "sick" ––
meaning that the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems are creating a "toxic environment".
And then, of course, there are personal psychological responses, e.g. to the color green, or to too few
windows (or too many windows). I bring this up because travelers are either going to be wearing
equipment and/or be in enclosed rooms (ala holodeck), and are going to be moving through all sorts of
unfamiliar spaces. Once they acclimate to the equipment, it's going to be important that the actual
physical space where they are experiencing the dram has appropriate ventilation. And if smell is a part of
the sensory aspect of the space ... you get the picture.
Choose Custom Spatial Elements of the Story world. Within the story world itself, there need to be
choices that are either made explicitly by the traveler, or made for the traveler by the dram assistant/sales
guide based on a knowledge of the requirements of the current traveler.
Should there be standard, preset spatial proportions, or should spaces "right-sized" for the traveler. For
example, travelers who are known to be claustrophobic may require that the rooms in that gothic mansion
be a bit roomier. As a matter of fact, most travelers over 5'5" may feel confined by rooms designed for
smaller cultures, and unless the dram is striving for historical accuracy or consensual masochism it
doesn‘t make much storytelling sense to keep travelers in a state of discomfort.
As the traveler is moving through a space, how much distance is represented by a single stride? If the
traveler is playing a character who has a shorter stride that s/he does, should the stride be a "natural" one
for the traveler –– which means that other characters may need to be adjusted in some way –– or should
stride length be kept "natural" for the character, which is likely to be uncomfortable for the traveler.
Will the spaces/objects be able to "tell" the traveler anything. (Meaning, is there some mechanism by
which the history of the space can be revealed by the room/object itself? And, in futuristic settings, a
room may well be expected to speak, give information, etc.)
Can the traveler alter aspects of the space "on the fly". For example, in a game dram, the traveler may be
able to physically move walls. In the narrow room example we just mentioned, the traveler may be able to
change room size or color, or textures by giving a command.
Choose Method of Navigation. Even drams that take place in a single space will need to find ways to
help the traveler "get around". More complex experiences will require more elaborate navigation options.
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- view the experience from different physical points of view by physically pointing to the space or
using a virtual map of some sort.
- be able to walk/run through the space using a movement device (such as a joystick or trackball)
or using physical apparatus, such as a multidirectional treadmill.
- jump from space to space by consulting a virtual map –– which may have some options closed off
to a particular traveler in group experiences. (There's nothing like having someone materialize
during the middle of your big argument with Charles Darwin.) (See the chapter on places, spaces,
and objects for more navigation choice problems.)
Choose Stories. Some travelers may want a great deal of control over the characters, situations, and
spaces involved in the dram they are experiencing. Others may be content to make a few key choices and
let it go at that. These notes are filled with possible story choices. Here are a couple of more obvious
approaches:
Choose Complete Stories. There are so many thousands of well-known stories that can be turned into
drams that it would make sense for dram developers to capitalize on existing characters, situations (even
settings), not to mention the built-in audience. For example, there could be Shakespeare world –– filled
with characters from the various plays. Old Will created enough of them to populate a fair-sized town.
This means that the traveler would be able to choose from a list of complete stories to ghost, visit, or even
take part in (with a certain amount of required coaching, of course). Since the story has certain well-
known events, the amount/type of interaction is likely to be peripheral to the key story events.
Choose Characters who Create Their Own Stories. Another kind of choice a traveler might have is to
choose 2-3 major characters from fiction, history, or real life and put them in some situation and place ––
essentially the same choices made by visitors to some varieties of improvisational comedy. The dram
program then generates the dialogue and action, and travelers can choose to be involved if they wish.
Choose the Physical Location of Story Choice Points. In drams where travelers can make certain kind
of changes (or make decisions related to the story) there will need to be some mechanism for telling the
traveler when/how choices are to be made:
- the characters themselves can explicitly ask the traveler(s) to make choices
- a virtual symbol may appear in the traveler's field of view. By touching the symbol, a menu of
choices may appear –– or the traveler may simply say what s/he wants to have happen.
- some other sort of standard signal might be given –– indicating to the traveler that s/he must
make a choice for the story. For example, there could be a color-shift in the scene, or a voice
(audible only to the traveler) could relay the nature of the decision.
Choose In-story Replay of Events. Certain kinds of drams are likely to want to allow the traveler to be
able to replay certain scenes while they are in the dram. drams used primarily for training are a good
example of this. Some options might be:
- Replay the last event / time period and let me "ghost" it.
- Replay the last event / time period and allow me to play the role I was playing, showing changes
that would have occurred if I alter my responses, but not carrying those changes forward into the
story world.
- During the replay, let me change my behavior and let it carry over to the story world.
Choose to Record Traveler Choices. Keeping a record of travelers' choices (and the way they make
them) will be very useful to the dram assistant to be able to create profiles for particular travelers, so that
the whole choice process can be streamlined. If, for example, a particular traveler wants to make lots of
choices, only wants to change the physical appearance of characters, and is using a particular home-
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interface, then the dram assistant can mark as low priority any dram that doesn't match that profile. As
always, the privacy of the traveler will need to be maintained through the dram assistant.

Doing Pre-Testing

Once general choices of environment and story have been made, you would think that it would be time to
get on with the experience itself. Unlike most other story forms, Virtual Drama will require a high degree
of co-ordination among various technical systems and an unparalleled level of flow between the traveler,
the equipment, and individual elements of the story world itself.
Keeping the traveler comfortable, safe, and entertained is a process not unlike preparing someone for a
long journey through unknown countries. Like the adventure tour operator, the dram developer, wanting
to ensure a memorable but safe journey for the traveler, is likely to require traveler pre-testing to make
sure everything goes well.
These pre-tests will ordinarily be made within an immersive environment, with actual testing cloaked in
the guise of a story world where travelers perform activities and respond to different situations. Travelers
won‘t be fooled, of course, especially if taking the IslandAdventure dram is a requirement for going
through certain other dram experiences, and you're required to run through the dram every six months or
so. But travelers will appreciate the relatively painless way in which physical, psychological, and
preference data is obtained – to the extent that much basic physiological testing for medical purposes may
well come to be conducted in immersive story worlds.
There are four times when pre-testing should definitely take place:
- Baseline testing for new travelers, including any and all testing for story worlds with new and
different requirements.
- A general pre-test given the traveler periodically by the dram assistant to update important
sensory, physiological, psychological, and life event information. (For example, if a traveler has a
sprained ankle and just got divorced, quite a few profile elements may have changed.)
- Testing new interface equipment. Of course if the dram system isn't integrated, but consists of
separate interface units, the operation of the entire system will have to be tested as well as the new
piece of equipment.
- Testing a new story world. Where a dram has specific sensory, language, or biophysiological
requirements, it will be important for the story world control program to know what major
adjustments have to be made to accommodate the traveler. For example, a dram on hiking through
Renaissance Florence may have been primarily intended to teach basics of the Italian language to
English-speaking secondary students, but has become quite popular as a travel guide for senior
citizens. This means that evaluating physical mobility and comprehension of Italian might be
crucial to the continued success of the dram –– since developers might be able to add-on a
translator module, and alter that trek over the hills of Florence to a ride on a hay cart.
Here are a few of the kinds of pre-tests we might expect to see:
Physiological/physical profile. For personal safety (and for insurance purposes) it will be critical for
travelers, dram assistants, and story worlds to know the nature of the traveler's heart rate, breathing,
mobility, flexibility, etc. under actual story conditions. Even in drams where all of these factors are
explicitly monitored by equipment, it will be useful to either prevent travelers from participating in drams
which are hazardous to their health, to alter dram activities to match the abilities of the traveler, or to
require an explicit legal waiver prior to participation.
A full physiological/physical profile is best performed / maintained by the dram assistant (even when
testing is done in some specialized place) for reasons of privacy.
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Bio-Mechanical Equipment Testing. There's nothing like being thrown 20 feet into the air by a
mechanical bull. Of course, if the apparatus you're using isn't calibrated properly of if the harnesses aren't
fastened, you might find yourself actually flying 20 feet through the non-virtual ceiling.
Where the traveler will have to "hook up" into an apparatus of some sort for certain kinds of physical
movement, it will be essential to pre-test the traveler's responses / abilities / mobility for a range of story
worlds. If for example, the traveler has a knee problem that prevents flexing beyond a certain degree, the
dram assistant will need to look for drams that either don't require this sort of flexing, or which are
sophisticated enough to be able to modify their physical requirements "on the fly" to match the traveler's
abilities.
Which physical abilities are pre-tested depends on the apparatus configuration, of course, but I'm in favor
of some sort of universal pre-testing program –– monitored by the dram assistant or a medical assistant. It
can make choices of active drams much simpler, and can help to provide standards that will level the
playing field for dram apparatus developers. I also believe that it would work best if the story space
forwarded all of the physical immersion requirements to the immersion program so that all final
adjustments can be made under the guidance of the dram assistant.
For example, let‘s say that a traveler needs to be hooked up to a flying exoskeleton and to use a special
nonverbal signal system to be able to play a bird of prey in WildAdventureTours. A flying creature should
be able to accelerate rapidly, dive, swoop, etc. – all of which are physically demanding maneuvers – so,
after ruling out serious vertigo problems, phobias, and so on from the traveler‘s physiological profile, the
―flight emulator‖ might want to make sure that travelers are actually fitted properly into the apparatus,
and then might take them on a gentle journey, testing takeoff and landing skills, gradually increasing the
level of difficulty until the traveler is acclimated.
Psych Profile. One of the more sensitive personal profile areas is the psychological profile. The
likelihood of misuse of this sort of information is so great that I can only see it being acquired and held
under the strictest of secrecy arrangements, with only the dram assistant and the traveler having access
(by law). The psych profile would be most interested in:
Phobias and other deep-seated fears. Although this sort of psych profile wouldn't be used for
formal clinical analysis (which is likely to spawn quite a few drams of its own), it will be really
important to gather life-threatening information, including strong responses/aversions that the
traveler may not want to admit having. For example, I once knew someone who had a very
distinct fear of lampposts, but refused to admit that anything was wrong. After all, that was
"ridiculous", wasn't it? A casual conversation with her parents turned up the information that a six
foot snake had dropped from a lamppost right onto her shoulders when she was a small child on
vacation in rural Florida. Not such a ridiculous fear after all, eh?
Personal preferences, likes and dislikes. From the dram story world point of view, this would
likely be the most used element of a profile. If, for example, the dram has a scene where travelers
are fed a special meal of celebration, it would be very useful to know which foods travelers
particularly like so that the meal can be customized –– within the boundaries of food available in
the culture of the story world. (I don‘t deal with the topic of dram foods in these notes. Some
shapeable food substrate with carefully constructed flavoring would do.)
However, from the privacy point of view it will be crucial for the dram assistant to only release a limited
amount of information to the dram program and to have some way of making sure it is removed from the
program. Suggestions of "poison-wrapped" data elements that can't be cloned and which self-destruct are
interesting for this purpose.
Sensory Levels. Anyone who has been part of a family understands that people have different sensory
abilities. Brother Emil can hear a paper drop 20 feet away; cousin Tara runs screaming from the room
when the TV is too loud; Uncle Marc never noticed that his own pants were on fire. All of these sensory
differences are natural, and need to be accounted for in the design of drams.
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It should be fairly easy to run travelers through a series of sensory experiences, asking them to adjust
virtual controls until it "feels right". Especially important will be sensitivity to color and visual/auditory
depth, since the major selling point of drams (at least until just-in-time interactive structures are
developed) will be their 3D-ness.
Stimulation Profile. Some people positively buzz with excitement when they see a forest. Others barely
respond to skydiving. Many stories –– especially action/adventure stories –– rely on an understanding of
visitors' stimulation patterns to produce effects. For example, the amount/type of suspense required to
build an audience into a semi-fear state has changed over the years, but the need to build suspense before
the "payoff" –– the monster suddenly breaks through the wall just behind the heroine –– remains pretty
much the same.
Even comedy requires a certain level of "activation" from story visitors. They must be more or less
awake, more or less de-tensed from daily pressures (comedy clubs and alcohol go together) and must be
able to fall into the rhythm of rest-build-laugh-recover that is characteristic of the natural tension release
system comedy taps into.
By taking the traveler through a series of experiences and measuring physiological and sensory responses
–– such as retinal patterns, skin conductivity, and cortical activity –– a "base-level" of stimulation can be
established. Since individual stim profiles can be affected in many ways, it will also be important for the
story world to do last-minute checks to make sure the traveler is "ready" for the experience.
Language Testing. If you've ever visited a country where you don't understand the local language at all,
and no one seems to understand yours, you'll remember that it may have been amusing at first, but after a
while –– perhaps when you needed to eat –– it became extremely frustrating. It can be equally frustrating
when you meet people who do speak your language but have accents/vocabulary that is so different from
yours that you're not exactly sure what's going on.
Even though most cross-language drams will have built-in language/ dialect/ vocabulary translators, it
will be quite useful to know the traveler's language abilities in advance, so that language modifications
can be made to the dram, translator characters introduced, or training sessions added for the traveler.
Some likely language pre-test areas include:
- Traveler's "natural" language (best knowledge)
- Range of traveler's vocabulary
- Specialty knowledge vocabulary (e.g. astrophysics, celebrity gossip)
- Best translation mode (auditory, visual, guide)
- any language disabilities (dyslexia, etc.)
- traveler's dialect/accent and dialects/accents s/he has trouble understanding
Basic Navigation Ability Testing. Some people can look at a map and tell you approximately how long
it will take you to drive from one point to another. Others have trouble reading a compass. Since being
able to navigate within the story world will be vital to the success of many drams, it will be useful to
know a traveler's most appropriate/preferred method of navigation, and it will be best to assume that
travelers have only rudimentary abilities.
Testing might include:
- ability to choose directions using a virtual compass
- tendency to read/misread maps
- ability to read/remember bird's-eye-view schematics and make correct choices
- comfort with using/giving verbal directions (such as "out to the courtyard and up the stairs")
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- comfort level asking characters for directions (a well known male/female difference :) )
- any particular perspectives with which the traveler has physical/sensory difficulty
Testing the Way the Traveler Makes Choices. Most drams will require travelers to make some sort of
in-story choices other than navigation, since the ability to choose is one of the major features of the story
form. They might be asked to decide which of several options a character should take, or they may be
able to alter the storyline, characters, or events at particular "choice points". How the traveler best makes
choices, therefore, becomes a concern –– especially if there are particular choice methods which "freeze"
the traveler, and affect the progress of the dram.
Choice areas that might be tested:
- Which choice mode (multiple choice, yes/no, sentence description) is the traveler most
comfortable with?
- Are there particular kinds of choices that the traveler doesn't want to make (e.g. life or death)?
- Which physical mechanism for making choices (e.g. visual controls, auditory suggestions,
prompting by a story guide) is best for the traveler?
- Does the traveler prefer to make a lot of small choices, only major choices, or very few choices?
Of course there will be any number of different measurement systems for all of these pre-tests, but I'd like
to put in my vote for an omni pre-test program that can take all of the results of the various pre-tests and
summarize them in ways that are meaningful to the traveler.
This might be part of the function of the dram assistant –– since this virtual character already would have
the unenviable task of telling the head of Amalgamated Everything Inc. that no, Mark can't participate in
the MtEverestExpedition dram because he failed 13 out of the 14 physiology and equipment tests.
From a developer‘s point of view, adding the analysis of pre-test results to the dram assistant's duties
would be added justification for making this character a sophisticated, independent part of the dram team.

Going Through Immersion

General traveler pre-testing can take place quite some time before the actual dram experience. At some
point, though, the traveler dons equipment and walks into a chamber or mounts a grasshopper exoskeleton
or releases a cloud of story gas and gets ready for the actual experience. The point of actual physical
immersion is crucial for the success of the dram. If equipment isn't working properly, or if sensory levels
or language programs need to be adjusted, they'll have to be fixed at this point –– and the traveler isn't
likely to be in the mood for lengthy delays or excuses, no matter how winning the smiles of the two-
headed story guide.
This is considerably different than the shoot-em-up computer game model, where learning navigation
techniques is part of the competitive aspect of the game environment. Most travelers won‘t want to move
through the dram feeling as though they have to learn how to walk again. Relatively few travelers will
have the sort of obsessive zeal and limitless free time of the typical gamer.
There are also likely to be lots of minor adjustments that need to be tested for a particular dram. For
example, if you are working with an elaborate exoskeleton apparatus that allows you to do almost
anything, it will have to adjust for that extra bulky pair of pants you're wearing or the extra spring in your
step this morning. Particularly long experiences will also have to consider the chafing/muscle fatigue
effects of long term apparatus use –– a good argument for light weight or spray-on sensory apparatus.
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For this reason, I think that the immersion process itself needs to be a dramatic ―experience‖ – with
equipment requirements determining the nature/length of the experience. At the same time, actual traveler
mobility, flexibility, and physiological parameters can be re-tested, which will be very beneficial for
drams that can adjust traveler physical/sensory requirements ―on-the-fly‖.
The Dram Assistant. Because the immersion process is so important, I can see the dram assistant (who
would already have access to all the necessary physical and psych information) actually conducting the
physical immersion –– up to the point where the traveler actually enters the story world – at which time a
story guide would take over to complete any story-specific immersion.
Testing Angels. The angel, you'll remember, is the failsafe character who warns the traveler if there are
any dangerous problems encountered in the process of flow between the traveler and the dram. The angel
should be able to stop the entire dram and all equipment if necessary, and must be able to communicate
with the traveler at all times. Angel systems should be tested early on in the process of physical
immersion and should be re-tested once travelers are in the story world.
Physiological Immersion. drams which require activity on the part of the traveler, or which are likely to
produce intense feelings or sudden shocks should be able to be adjusted to accommodate the traveler's
current physiological state –– which can include everything from heart/breath monitoring to a full range
of biomonitoring data.
This is also a point at which the dram assistant (or the angel) can say "Sorry, you just can't take this kind
of stress today" for experiences that can't be adjusted.
Sensory Immersion. It can be extraordinarily annoying to have the bees in that farm dram sound louder
than aircraft, or to be unable to hear a character who is clearly shouting. Since most sensory equipment
will be adjustable, this may be the part of immersion where travelers actually pay attention to what's
going on. Of course these adjustments should be made as subtly as possible –– by taking travelers through
a scene where they are required to respond to various sensory events.
Language adjustments. Equally important from the traveler's point of view is the ability to understand
characters (and to be understood). This particular type of physical immersion may need to take place
partly in the story world, but if the dram can pass language requirements to the immersion program
(supervised by the dram assistant) it will help to make the whole adjustment process a routine separate
from the story experience.

Using Story World Controls

Once the traveler is physically immersed and has had all systems checked, it will be time to move into the
story world. Before travelers get to have a nice chat with the story guide, though, they will have to know
how to navigate within that particular story world.
Because learning to navigate tends to interfere with actually beginning the dram experience, I suspect that
many story worlds will either ―pass‖ some version of their navigation systems to pre-testing modules, or
will have standardized scenes in which the traveler is required to use most of the navigation controls
before moving into the main story world.
From the traveler's point of view, one of the most important aspects of the dram structure will be the
controls that allow for navigation, movement, environment regulation, choice and communication.
Although individual immersive dramatic environments are likely to develop their own control systems, I
fervently hope that standardized control interfaces and commands for common traveler tasks (both
auditory and visual) will be adopted by the dram industry as early as possible.
Just how a traveler moves "normally" from place to place (as opposed to jumping) will depend on the
equipment used. However, whether the traveler is using a handheld joystick, touching a virtual control
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panel, or moving "naturally" on a multidirectional treadmill, there has to be some way of indicating the
exact direction of movement.

Movement Controls

Full Body Navigation.. For travelers communicating with characters, "lifelike" movement (whether the
character is supposed to be human, canine, or a talking broccoli from Ursa Minor) is essential, especially
if characters in the dram are capable of recognizing erratic movement as representing some sort of
physical/mental problem. Just imagine someone who zigzags all over the place like a child just learning to
walk. Pretty funny, huh? One way of handling this situation is to allow travelers to indicate where they
want to go and to have the apparatus/ program move them at a character-appropriate pace and gait,
stopping at a standard distance from the person/ object/ set-feature. In this way, a particular traveler just
has to indicate "I want to jump on that horse, then wheel and trot up to Lady Aguilla."
The question is how to give instructions without being extremely obvious. Someone who points at things
and talks at them would be considered to be "peculiar" in most societies. It would be possible within some
dram story worlds to set up a situation where virtual characters believe that travelers come from some
strange country where the customs are very different, but that distinctly limits the nature of traveler
interaction. Or, the navigation activities of travelers might be "regularized" by the program so that it
seems that they haven't said/pointed to anything.
One alternative would be to use combinations of minor physical adjustments in conjunction with a
signaling system –– an approach used by secret societies throughout the ages. For example, if the
musketeer wants to go jump on the horse, s/he might look at the horse and move both thumbs very
slightly at the same time. There can be specific, very small hand motions, or hand and face movement
combinations –– all of which have specific meanings to the program. The key is to make sure that the
movements aren't likely to be made accidentally –– which is why I suggested moving both thumbs in a
particular direction. There are numerous hand systems in use by military organizations and sports teams
(although those systems tend to stress somewhat more obvious nonverbal signals), but I'm sure developers
will have great fun coming up with non-obvious systems. My hope, as usual, is some standardization
develops so that travelers don't have to learn a new system of signs every time they visit a new story
world.
Facial Movement and Gesture. When we see people who walk stiffly without facial expression, we
refer to them as "robots" or "zombies" or "overmedicated". No matter what we call them, the behavior is a
bit eerie and tends to make people nervous.
Assuming that we want the traveler to express "normal" face, head, hand and arm behaviors, we will need
to either track their actual movement using scanning equipment or put them in the sort of gear which
allows key body parts to be tracked.
I say this because even if you develop a signal system that controls specific facial and body displays (say,
a glove with a keypad system built in), normal movement and facial patterns are so rapid that travelers
would spend most of their time thinking about the keypad and not their involvement in the story.
Another alternative is to have body nonverbals triggered by voice nonverbals –– inflection, pitch, etc. ––
by creating modules where travelers train their doubles to respond to certain changes in inflection with
certain movements.
This approach could also be used when travelers are playing specific characters –– especially when
travelers' words are being translated into character appropriate accent, vocabulary and phrasing
(―simchar‖) by the dram program.
Jump Controls. It's natural for people who spend their time switching from program to program using
TV remote controls to think about being able to jump from one place to another. Although dram
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developers should think long and hard about when and where they allow travelers to make jumps, it is
likely to be an important feature of dram story worlds.
Some situations where jump capabilities might be useful include:
Moving to an entirely different location in the story world. This might be useful if travelers are allowed to
go wherever they want in a story world (especially if they are "ghosting"). There are also likely to be
certain kinds of drams which follow the film/tv model and only display key events, so travelers who are
given freedom of movement will need to jump to a new location (or one of several possible locations).
Moving to a different time in the same location in the story world. drams which stress key events may
want to continue the story in the same place, but at a different time. Or travelers may want to "dive" the
space itself by visiting it at a different time –– a good device to include in mysteries.
Developers of drams which are not primarily game-based will have to be careful to focus traveler jump
options in directions that will enhance the story world experience. For example, in a dram dealing with
family relationships, travelers who are involved in the experience don't want to see people appearing and
disappearing all the time during intense events. I call this the "apparition problem". The problem
primarily occurs when travelers are both communicating with other travelers and participating in a dram
as characters. In situations where travelers are "ghosting" (and can't be seen by anyone anyway) or are
"soloing" (functionally by themselves even though thousands of people may be simultaneously
participating in different clones of the dram), the problem shouldn‘t occur.

Environmental Controls

Making Physical Apparatus Adjustments. An absolute "must" control panel will be virtual
instrumentation capable of adjusting the treadmills, hammocks, cocoons, grasshopper-like exoskeletons,
and dram rooms in which travelers will walk, climb, lope, crawl, and fly. A key to the positioning of these
controls is that they should be accessible by both voice and hand control –– for situations in which the
hands are immobilized or where the auditory system may be overwhelmed by virtual sound (such as a
volcano or a spaceship taking off, or an entire roomful of pre-teen children at a party). Even with safety
systems built-in, and angel characters ready to give warnings, travelers are likely to want to make some
adjustments during a dram, and will feel a lot safer if they know they can become a landing Peter Pan as
well as a flying Peter Pan.
Making Sensory Adjustments. Even with pre-testing and immersion-testing of sensory levels, there will
still be numerous situations where travelers will want to "turn up the volume" or adjust color
characteristics or "alter tactile feedback from the spiny frog". Since these adjustments won't need to be
made often (except in extremely poorly designed drams), I suspect that devoting a portion of a pop-up
virtual control panel will work well enough.
In/Out Controls. In story worlds that are used for work, play, education and therapy, the individual
traveler is going to want to have some way of saying "get me out of here" –– which is, in effect, a pause
or exit control. The question for developers of individual drams will be when/how the traveler will be
allowed to re-enter the dram and under what conditions. For example, pausing a simple, single-traveler
dram and having the traveler re-immerse and pop back in shouldn't be particularly difficult. However,
multiple traveler drams are another story. If a traveler re-enters a dram at a particular place and re-joins
fellow travelers at what amounts to a later time, the problem will be finding some way of having the
traveler re-locate the others. But , if the traveler re-enters the experience at exactly the same storytime at
which they left, some mechanism for jumping to the "current" storytime of fellow travelers will have to
be established.
This shouldn't pose much of a problem in fixed-script drams or for shell-script drams (part scripted, part
improvised). However, in drams which can be changed by characters (especially "independent"
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characters) or by travelers without anyone "really" knowing what is going to happen, some sort of
entrance map/panel/locator controls will be useful. It would also be interesting for this sort of panel to
give a summary of what has happened since the traveler left the experience. ("The planet has been
destroyed and you are left floating in an emergency pod wandering the vastness of space. Enjoy your
stay!")
Dive Controls for Spaces and Objects. Just as travelers will be permitted to ride the senses, thoughts,
and past of characters, so too might they be able to take the point of view of a flower, a chair, a room, or
an entire planet. The controls would be similar, although we might not expect rooms to move a great deal.

Communication Controls

Time Controls. You might wonder why time controls would be important in a story form where you are
expected to "immerse yourself". In fact, there are a number of situations that call for time controls, all of
which could be reprresented on a virtual time console:
- Dram Time. For dram worlds that are leased by the hour, some way of timing how long the
traveler has been in that particular world will be important. Of course, this can also be useful for a
traveler who has some life outside of the dram world –– whether the experience is pay-as-you-go
or free. ―What do you mean you missed Lisa's fifth birthday party because you were fishing with
your virtual niece!!‖ dram time can begin at immersion or when the traveler actually enters the
story world itself. Assuming that the time starts at "0", the traveler would always be able to tell
how much time they've spent in the dram. I'd also expect non-timed drams to have a "pause" mode
which stops the timer –– particularly for game-oriented experiences where bits of the story world
do strange things after you've been in them a certain length of time.
- Geotime. When you have travelers from different parts of the world simultaneously involved in
drams (especially long-duration ones) they are likely to want to have some common point of
reference –– so that, for example, for a traveler from New York City the time might be 8PM, but
for fellow travelers in Stockholm, it would be 2AM. For traveler convenience, I'd also like to see
some sort of "Geolag" computation, which displays a map of the world, the location of all travelers
(of those who haven't disabled this sort of information), and a number representing the local time
(Mytime) for that player. For very physical, endurance, or psychologically difficult games, a
Geolag computation should prove quite useful. It makes a lot of sense to use an existing
international standard such as GMT.
- Mytime. When you are sitting at a stationary computer (or at an outdoor cafe using a notebook
computer like I am right now), you can look at your watch or a clock on the wall to tell the time. If
you are immersed in a dram, you may find it difficult to tell what is "outside the story" and what is
"inside" –– even if you are wearing glasses that allow you to refocus on the "real" world. For this
reason, and for various other uses, including geotime computations, having the current date and
time could prove quite useful.
- Biotime. Although a time indication of personal bio-parameters may seem a bit exotic, in drams
where a certain amount of endurance, awareness, or sensory acuity is required –– and where bio-
parameters are tracked for individual travelers –– some determination of personal biocycle position
may well prove important. For example, in selecting crews for "starship mission" drams with
simulated space environments, it may be necessary to provide crews 24 hrs a day. Although the
obvious way to do this would be to try to use travelers from different geotimes, we all know that
even people in the same "time zone" have different sleep cycles. Add to this hormonal, menstrual,
and cortical activity cycles, and you begin to see the function a "biotime" measurement might play
in certain immersive story worlds –– especially ones in which the story world is an interface to
actual "work" activity rather than primarily for entertainment.
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- Storytime. Since a dram story world can take place anywhere and anywhen, each traveler should
be able to track the effective story world date and time in terms that they can understand. Although
some sophisticated experiences are likely to develop separate timing systems based on the period
of rotation of, say, the planet on which the story takes place, dram developers are likely to prefer
that travelers be clear about when they are. In drams where groups of travelers are permitted to
jump to other times, but can maintain contact, this sort of storytime will be crucial, for example
when gathering information or clues.
- Divetime. Travelers who are allowed to dive into the pasts of characters, places, or objects are
going to want to have two story world time references: the time and date relative to the story world,
and the amount of time they've been involved in the dive. Although "storytime" measurements will
be sufficient for most story-relative dives, I suspect that time slowing, speeding, and dimensional
shifts will make a divetime indication worthwhile. Then we have the situation where travelers are
only permitted to dive for certain periods of time.
Controls for Communication With Characters. In a story form which stresses interaction with virtual
characters, communication between travelers and characters is exceptionally important. Where possible,
travelers are going to want to be able to alter communication modes during the dram. Let's take a look at
some options:
- No communication. Travelers simply "ghost" and follow the action. Still, travelers might need to
have specific character vocabulary/language or culturally specific actions translated. A verbal
signal (say, "translate") could be given, and a translation –– using the traveler's specific
culture/language/dialect –– could be whispered in the traveler's ear or displayed as scrolling text on
a virtual overlay of the dram.
- Limited communication. Travelers and characters might be able to exchange yes/no answers, or
interact crudely using menus of possible questions and answers. The menu of possible phrases
approach will require some sort of virtual drop-down menu system, or voice recognition pre-
training of the traveler's voice so that the dram program can discern the limited vocabulary of
phrases.
- There is actually quite a lot that can be done with this sort of communication system.
Travelers can make choices that affect the plot or characters' actions. They can ask simple
questions of the characters, or the characters can ask questions in return. Developers are
likely to want to limit the number of points at which travelers are allowed to communicate in
this way, since it could be quite interruptive in multiple-traveler environments.
- Full verbal communication, no nonverbal. This is a situation where travelers and characters
can understand each other verbally, but can't read each other's nonverbals - such as gesture, facial
expression, and so forth. Since this sort of communication is key, I'd suspect that some sort of
signalling system will be developed like the ones I've mentioned above. Developers will have to be
quite careful not to overwhelm the traveler with complex signaling systems –– especially if the
industry doesn't come up with some form of standardization.
- Full verbal and nonverbal communication. This option brings us close to our goal of complete
interaction, but there are still lots of difficulties. If translation between characters and travelers is
seamless, how do you go about re-incorporating "natural mis-understanding"? How much time do
travelers have to spend learning the culture/language of a story world –– assuming that everyone
won't be addicted to them? Do you allow special training options for people who don't
communicate well in any culture or language?
Controlling Surfs/ Hitches/Dives for Characters. Sophisticated drams are likely to allow travelers to
move into the senses, minds, and pasts of characters –– if only because it's a device that differentiates
drams from drameo, film, and television and allows them to use storytelling techniques popularized in
forms like the novel. Controls might include:
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- Surf –– allows the traveler to take the sensory point of view of the character. This will require
adjustment controls to prevent disorientation, since even if a body suit, harness, etc are moving the
traveler's body in co-ordination with a character's actions, there is still likely to be some lag. At
first only visual and auditory surfing is likely to be permitted of certain characters, with built-in
compensation for motion (such as situations where a character rapidly turns his/her head to look at
something). Traveler's are likely to want the kind of compensation controls that would allow this
sort of rapid turn to be performed in slow motion, like a panning camera. Multiple head-turns and
full-body actions –– such as a running sequence –– will require specialized procedures such as a
temporary "out-of-body" perspective.
- Hitch –– Permits the traveler to enter the current thoughts (visual, auditory, etc.) of the character
as well as the senses. Since one technique for creating relatively independent virtual characters
could be to build the personality using like/dislikes, a personal history, and some theory of normal
personality development, it should be possible to display the image system and subtext thoughts of
characters. Any hitching control system should allow the traveler to turn on images, to localize
them in some small part of the viewable area and to provide thoughts as text in the same part of the
viewable area. Or, to allow the traveler to move fully into the senses, thoughts and images of a
character –– as disorienting as that might be.
- Dive –– sends the traveler into a character's past. This device will be particularly useful for
mysteries, for psychological portrayals, or for drams which span generations of particular families.
I would expect that at first the number of dive options will be limited, and could be represented by
the equivalent of a drop-down menu, with the traveler only being permitted to "dive" at particular
points in the scenario. Diving produces particular challenges for multiple traveler drams, since if
travelers are diving, they are absent from the present for a certain period of time.
- Of course character diving will make mysteries much more interesting, since entire teams of
travelers can be deployed to search various characters' pasts for clues. The savvy mystery-dram
producer will make sure that key personality clues are hidden in difficult-to-reach cul-de-sacs:).
Controls will range the gamut from menus of choices to time wheels. Especially important will be the
ability of a traveler who is diving to know what the dram "present" is (to be able to communicate with
travelers who aren't diving). drams where travelers can pop in and out anywhere in the time stream of the
dram will need to know the "storytime" of each traveler as well as the "geotime" (e.g. GMT) for travelers
who are from different time zones.
Communicating With Guides. Story Guides, who are likely to be the most interactive virtual characters
in drams, should, I believe, receive primary focus in the development of language & nonverbal
recognition systems for story worlds, if only because they are single characters who can be used to test
approaches later extended to other characters. If drams can be "updated" regularly, the guide character can
be subtly "enhanced" on successive "upgrades" and incremental changes in behavior can be introduced in
batches (with slightly different changes being introduced for different groups of travelers).
Guides can also be used to test traveler control systems. For example, you could have a dram in which the
traveler can't communicate with any of the story world characters except for the guide, or the guide can
only "pass on" information to characters. This may seem a bit "Alice in Wonderland", but a brief delay
between the time that a traveler tells something to the guide and the time that the guide "passes it on" in
some way to characters could buy the dram program valuable seconds of computational delay without
annoying travelers.
Communicating With Other Travelers. When multiple travelers are involved in a dram as a group (or
team), they are likely to want to know where and when other travelers are located. A 3-D map of the story
world with the position of each traveler represented as a blip (perhaps with the traveler's storytime
underneath –– like air traffic radar displays)is likely to be sufficient. Representation of the location of all
travelers in the entire story world would be useful for administrative purposes, or for socially oriented
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drams in which travelers want to find friends who are regular travelers in a particular dram. Of course, in
drams where there are millions of travelers, some particularly clever strategies will have to be developed.

Story Controls

Story Choice Points. One of the more intriguing aspects of drams will be the ability of the traveler to
make choices during the experience. "Choices" refer not only to where/when a traveler may move, but
also to plot or character decisions which directly affect the story. Developers aren't likely to allow
travelers carte blanche to change the story anytime they want –– although I do see a market for story
creation drams in which the traveler/authors immerse themselves and change the story/characters/settings
"as they go".
Since there are going to be particular times/places where the story may be changed, travelers in some
drams will need to have some way of knowing the location of story choice points and a method for
indicating those choices. Of course, where there are fully functioning story guides, the guide can simply
present the options to the traveler and talk through the decision, but in experiences without these sorts of
guides –– or where guides don't have full communication abilities, information will need to be presented
"somehow".
Drams which have a number of choice points could have a map which indicates where those points are
located. A timer might indicate how long until the next ―choice when‖. Once the choice point is reached,
a virtual character can present the choice situation and ask the traveler to make a decision, or some sort of
virtual menu system can be provided.
I can foresee game-related drams where travelers work their way to various choice points in order to
change the story in directions not anticipated by competing teams.
Like/Dislike Indicators. As drams become more sophisticated, there may come a time where the dram
assistant and, perhaps the story guide, will be interested in the responses of the traveler to individual
events and characters in a dram. Although biomonitoring of various stimulation levels (as compared with
some standard bioprofile for the individual traveler) could provide quite a lot of data, it will be useful to
have some way of evaluating experiences "on the fly". Since experiences are normally evaluated after
they occur, the traveler might have a single control which indicates level of like/dislike for the "event"
just past. Since most travelers who are actively involved in a dram won't want to spend half their time
pushing buttons (unless they're being paid to do so), some sort of hand signal or sensuit control is likely to
be much more effective at data gathering.
Dram assistants can use the results of these like/dislike indicators to help the traveler plan future
experiences. The story guide can use them as a marketing and development tool.
Replaying and Storing Experiences. The popularity of "instant replays" of key sports events, the
recording of TV programs for home re-use, and the constant presence of cameras at family functions of
all kinds points to a persistent human desire to "see it again". drams that offer "replays" or scene storage
as features are going to need to find ways for the traveler to indicate which experiences are to be repeated
(from when to when) and which are to be stored. Even when instant "bookmarks", such as specialized
hand signals, are used to "save this event", or when the story guide can be told "I'd like to store everything
from the time the giant lizard arrived until after the volcano erupted", a virtual in-dram recorder that
allows the traveler to quickly playback and mark events for replay and recall is likely to be popular.
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In-Story Flow

Entering the Story

Once physical immersion is complete and the ability to use controls assured, the traveler is ready to
actually enter the story world. For certain specialized drams some final sensory and apparatus checks may
need to be made, but we'll assume that story world developers will find ingenious ways of making that
happen.
At this point travelers will need to be tested on knowledge of the story world environment/ culture/
language –– especially if pre-story briefings or roleplay were required or if the major purpose of the dram
is educational, therapeutic, or occupational.
Meeting the story guide. The story guide is very special to the traveler, since this guide will be the
traveler's main source of information about the story world. If the traveler has visited the world
previously, the guide should also have information about those visits, so s/he can greet the traveler as "an
old friend". The story guide can take the traveler through a briefing about the world, or can test the
traveler's memory / pre-briefing training. It should also be possible at this point to change the appearance/
voice of the guide somewhat if that is necessary for traveler comfort.
It's also my feeling that the story guide should have access to the traveler's physical immersion results to
be able to evaluate whether the experience is "appropriate" or needs to be adjusted (where that is
possible). This sort of information access helps to protect the dram developer in situations where the dram
assistant (or worse, the angel) isn't functioning properly. Pre-briefing the story guide also makes it easier
for them to ―handle‖ travelers when problem situations arise. ―Jack, we‘ve been hopping for a couple of
miles now. I‘m getting kind of tired,‖ said the guide.
Although I'm hoping that navigation controls will become standardized on some sort of virtual console,
it's likely that dram designers will want to be creative with the "look" of consoles and may want to add
specialized navigation features. This means that the story guide (or some specialized equipment guide)
will need to make sure the traveler understands the how, where and when of controls. Although mastering
complicated controls is a part of the learning curve in current computer games, I suspect that the ordinary
dram traveler won't want to have to spend an entire dram experience just learning how to get around.
Being Briefed on the Story. Whether the traveler is entering an ongoing story, re-entering a familiar one,
or seeing everything for the first time, the story guide will need to let the traveler know "what's
happening". Who is married to whom. What those man-eating birds are doing on the top of the house.
Why the house is made of gingerbread in the first place. You get the picture.
Backstory briefing. If the traveler is going to interact with characters in an ongoing story, it's going to be
useful to know what has happened before the traveler arrived –– the ―backstory‖. ―This wolf character has
been to visit Riding Hood's grandmother, who appears to be missing. Riding Hood herself seems to like to
take long walks in the woods –– possibly to visit the woodsman, who has taken a fancy to her goodies.
You are the woodsman.‖
This backstory briefing should be done as succinctly as possible, and should make best use of the
traveler's optimum method of information acquisition (visual, auditory, 3D). It may be necessary to have
a virtual primer on hand for the traveler to access at all times. Very complex story briefings should be a
separate module –– and should occur prior to the dram story experience itself, especially when there are
multiple travelers.
Key character briefing. In drams where the traveler is supposed to know the key characters fairly well, a
character briefing will need to be integrated into the backstory briefing. This briefing might represent all
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of the information that the character being played by the traveler should already know. Or if the traveler
initiated the character (or has been playing the character for some time), she will need to be reminded
what she has learned about other characters in previous story visits. Since the amount of information
involved in a character briefing could be substantial (even given our natural tendency to forget some
things), I suspect that some mechanism will be needed to allow the traveler to request information on the
fly by giving a signal which tells the dram director that she needs the information. However, since this
"invisible spy" level of help adds yet another layer of complexity to the program –– the traveler's words
and interactions have to be carefully tracked–– only the most sophisticated drams are likely to provide
this sort of service.
In drams where multiple travelers play characters who interact with virtual characters, peer pressure is
likely to dictate that travelers brief themselves before an experience. Someone constantly referring to a
book, a console, or a voice in their ear cannot help but be distracting in an immersive experience, and
properly briefed travelers are unlikely to keep their displeasure to themselves. This also leads to the
thought that there may be a market for briefing modules based on particularly popular drams. For
example, if the "WarAndPeace" dram should catch the fancy of lots of would-be masochists out there,
there could be separate educational modules that serve the dual function of teaching Russian history /
language and preparing travelers for their role in the dram(s). In this particular case, there could be a
number of modules, including the role of women in the society, 19th Century Russian architecture, the
class system, the nature of agrarian societies, and so on.

Learning to Be Part of the Story World

Learning to Roleplay. Although I continue to maintain that even the best of improvisational actors have
trouble portraying characters who are substantially different than themselves in personality / vocabulary /
appearance (at least for extended periods of time), there is likely to be considerable traveler interest in
playing famous heroes, heroines, villains and villainesses. This means that travelers will need to practice
their roles in the story. This isn't particularly a problem where there is only one traveler in a short-term
"on the fly" dram –– where the characters, situations, etc. are created for one-time use –– but where there
are multiple travelers, or where the traveler needs to act out dialogue / actions in order for the story to
continue, the effectiveness of the traveler in the roleplay will need to be tested, and modifications made
where necessary. For example, if you are going to be playing the character Helena in the longtime dram
"Shakespeare World", it will be important for you to be able to speak the language, and understand both
the character and her relationships within that world. In fact, you will need to know approximately what
an actress would need to know in playing the role of Helena in other acted out story forms. There will
certainly be "non-period" versions of famous stories, but sophisticated dram worlds are likely to be
populated by travelers who have strong interest in the stories represented by those worlds.
As another example, in a dram where the virtual characters are quite independent, it might be necessary to
"filter" a particular traveler‘s accent/vocabulary/nonverbals –– so that the traveler says one thing, but
characters (and other travelers) hear a translation (―simchar‖). It might also be necessary to have a
training character enter the story, pull the traveler aside and say "M'lord, I know that you are from a
foreign land and not apprised of our ways. Let us repair to my home where we might apply a poultice to
your remaining arm."
Even in dram versions which translate your voice/vocabulary into time/culture appropriate form
(―simchar‖), you will need to understand the "nature" of the character, and for that purpose roleplay
would be very useful. Of course this also suggests that drams might need to have different interaction/
involvement levels built-in, or be sold/ rented as separate modules with different levels of difficulty of
interaction (using the computer game model). This would allow travelers who are quite comfortable
playing characters to interact at will (perhaps using prompters if specific dialogue is required - as in exact
recreations of famous plays/films), and those less comfortable to have a double "take-over" the role most
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of the time, allowing the traveler to jump in whenever they feel like it.
Certain drams will have teaching as their primary purpose. Others, like the "War and Peace" dram I
mentioned above, could be so complicated that travelers will need to learn a great deal about the society
to be able to interact in any meaningful way with characters from that story. In both of these situations the
traveler will need to do some sort of training within the structure of the story world –– whether this is in a
series of separate modules or in some apprenticeship area of the main story world.
Learning the Culture & Language. As anyone who has tried to learn basic French, Russian, Chinese,
English or Swahili can tell you, the language and culture of a people are bound together like the buds of a
desert flower. Since living in a particular culture and speaking the language every day are the best ways to
learn rapidly, and since story experiences are a very "engaging" way to do this, I expect drams to be used
extensively for language study. Virtual characters could be exceptionally patient teachers (or not so
patient, in the case of advanced students :)).
Even when the language is being simultaneously translated into your ear or scrolled across a navigation
console, or when the characters are speaking your own primary language, the culture of a place is best
learned by participating in it. For example, Renaissance Italy was made up of a number of dukedoms and
city states. A traveler to one of the courts would have to be very careful in manner, speech (even dress) to
avoid offending someone –– which, in courts filled with terminally bored young swordsmen, could prove
fatal.
The culture doesn't have to be exotic or located in another century to require training. Sit in a cafe in a
large city like New York or London and listen to the conversations around you. Each culture, subculture
and counterculture has its own vocabulary, rules, metaphors, and philosophy –– even when the language
is nominally the same.
Learning Daily Activity Skills. One of the more unfortunate realities having to do with the teaching of
history has to do with the fact that "primary original sources" were written by public relations apologists
for particular regimes, movements, or philosophies of government.
Over the past few decades, however, a huge investment in time, energy, and money has been made by
physical and cultural anthropologists and their financial backers to try to unearth the daily lives of
"ordinary" people from various centuries by examining diaries, records, rubbish heaps and the preserved
ruins of cities and towns.
This work, which seems to have engaged the imagination of students everywhere, has begun to produce a
wealth of information about "real" people –– including the legions of slaves/indentured servants who have
performed most of the actual work of "great civilizations".
These findings could be put to excellent use in creating drams which search for accuracy in historical
detail, or in fictional stories which are less interested in the "lives of rulers" than in "lives of the common
man".
Since an enormous amount of effort will have been invested in creating accurate portrayals (not to say
that there won't be alternative versions representing different interpretations of findings), it would be
useful to create a standardized set of historical immersive environments –– complete with "ordinary"
people. These "authentic" environments could then be used by developers of fictional or non-fictional
drams for a stipulated royalty.
Learning an Occupation. Travelers who plan to spend a fair amount of time in a dram community are
going to need to have some sort of occupation. That occupation may be particular to the story world, e.g.
dragon slayer, or may be a more common occupation, such as blacksmith. This fictional approach ties in
neatly with the educational use of drams in learning actual occupations. At first, because of high
development costs for dram modules, this training will tend to be restricted to occupations where practice
is difficult or unadvisable –– as in environmental cleanups, vulcanology, or certain areas of medical
practice such as surgery. As prices come down and immersive techniques become less cumbersome,
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however, more and more occupations can benefit from the sort of hands-on training where individual
learning styles can be accommodated.
Extending occupational training into the fictional realm of drams would serve the following purposes:
- A very important motivational factor could be added to "real-world" training, since role play in
story worlds has its own built-in reinforcement elements. For example, in quite complex scientific
areas in which mastery of both theory and experimental technique are required, master/ apprentice/
co-student relationships can be set up which allow students to study with "exemplary" scientists in
simulated environments. (Scientists whose personas, we assume, will have been modified to allow
for additional patience, teaching skill, etc. where necessary:)) This allows students to get to
understand "why" certain things are done the way they are as well as coming to understand what
hasn't been done in the field and why. This sort of apprenticeship relationship is usually reserved
for only the most accomplished students who have already established themselves as "promising"
at the university level. I also see the development of educational/dramatic drams as an excellent
way of energizing the community of scholars, who will certainly have something to say about
which advanced subjects should be accorded the "dram treatment".
- Occupations (including historical ones) can be represented realistically in otherwise fictional
stories. For example, if a dram is supposed to take place in a 19th century mining town, it just
wouldn't do to have background characters pretending to be miners. For one thing, someone who
has chosen this sort of environment for a dram is likely to be interested in the subject, and for
another, (as set decorators and directors of film stories can testify) there is something about the
"real" activity that usually "seems right" to audiences –– especially audiences who have watched
thousands of films and documentaries.

Interacting with Story Characters

An integral part of the dram experience will be interacting with computer generated (or mediated) story
characters. Travelers‘ communications might need to be translated into an appropriate language or
dialect, or into culturally specific words, gestures and movements, and travelers may well have to do
roleplay training to be able to fit into some story worlds, but their primary interest will always be the
experiences they have with story characters. The equipment used by the traveler will certainly affect the
nature of that interaction, since talking to cartoon characters while using heavy suits and headgear is a lot
different than putting on a pair of sunglasses and walking through a room where the people are
astonishingly real.
Beyond the physical impediments to communication, drams bring up issues of quantity and quality of
communication – simply because it is actually possible for travelers to communicate with characters,
which seems more like daily life than the non-interactive relationships travelers encounter in most story
forms .
- Quantity has to do with the amount of time travelers expect (and get) to spend with characters,
and, how, at least until we have fully automated characters, story characters can avoid
communicating with travelers.
- Quality refers to the way we spend time with characters so that our expectations are more or less
accurate and our experience is ―authentic‖.

Quantity Of Communication With Characters

Travelers may, for various reasons, want to choose the amount of contact they have with characters,
perhaps using some of the navigational controls I mentioned above, but only the most sophisticated drams
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are likely to want travelers to be able to tag along with any character they meet. To be able to manage the
amount of interaction without alienating the traveler it will be important to set up clear expectations about
the amount of contact that can be expected of certain characters, and to train other characters to avoid
travelers as much as possible. Detailed expectations of the amount of communication we have with others
are already built into our social structures. We only talk to strangers in certain situations, and our level of
intimacy and disclosure increases (with some exceptions) as the relationship comes to approximate the
family bond.
All story forms tend to use levels of personal distance. They give us access to characters at three basic
levels: background, secondary, and primary. drams will need to reinforce these levels in various ways,
such as by coding characters by level of acceptable interaction, otherwise the experience is likely to be
quite frustrating for the traveler, who will have to run from character to character seeing which ones are
willing to communicate.
- Background Characters are people passing in the street, the crowd in the stands, the pair of
lovers strolling in the park. We don‘t expect to communicate with them, and may be uncomfortable
if they initiate communication with us. Unless we are trying to stop a crime, we won‘t be terribly
upset if background characters avoid our attempts to talk with them.
- Secondary Characters are ―around‖, and may pop in and out and say something, but they aren‘t
intended to be the primary focus of the story. They are friends who stop by, neighbors you only
know to nod to, people passing on the street. All story forms use them. Secondary characters can
serve a lot of useful functions in drams, not the least of which is filling in story details, or nudging,
shoving, or harassing the traveler into moving into a desired physical or conversational direction.
We speak with secondary characters briefly, and then perhaps only in the way of small talk
(meaning likes, dislikes and personal history).
- Primary Characters are the ―stars‖ of the story. We are following their lives, and want to know
a fair amount about them. Unless communication is shared (perhaps on a task basis) among
secondary characters, primary characters will bear the brunt of communication with travelers.
Primary characters also include the story guide, who will be very important to the quality of our
dram experience.
Avoiding Communicating with Travelers. Until virtual people are developed (character independence
level 8), interaction between travelers and characters will have to be "managed" because the story
developer is looking to please the traveler with a certain amount of interaction without having to maintain
huge character databases and control structures. Because background and secondary characters aren‘t
supposed to be having much interaction with travelers, it will be crucial to teach them ways of ... how
shall I put this ... dodging travelers.
Some of the more obvious ways to accomplish this include:
- Restrict the number of times/places per scenario that the traveler can interact with
characters. Let's say that you are in the Tahiti Adventure dram, and are going from reef to reef and
island to island looking for buried surfers :). The dram rules say "You can ask each character one
question, but only when you are in the sand." Or ... "You can ask 10 questions during the scenario –
– but only at these choice points." This technique has the effect of drastically reducing the number
of responses that have to be prepared, but frames it in a game context. Travelers are given the task
of using the existing interaction resources to their advantage.
- Restrict the interaction to "menus" of questions or questions which require a specific
syntax. At particular points in the scenario, the traveler sees an icon indicating that questions may
be asked of a character. The traveler chooses the question to be asked. The character answers. In
this way, the traveler may seem to have a large number of questioning opportunities, but it is
relatively simple to preplan answers.
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- Restrict the number of characters capable of interacting with the traveler. I expect this
technique to be used heavily while independent, AI-driven characters are being developed because
it allows the creator to focus on one or two characters and to release incremental improvements in
voice recognition, meaning analysis and character response in subsequent story "versions". The
dram assistant and story guide characters are the logical candidates to receive this treatment, since
they are expected to interact with the traveler. Extensive communication using menus is likely to
be frustrating for the traveler (once the novelty of communicating –– ―It talked to me!‖ –– has
worn off.
- Trick the traveler into not communicating. As drams use more and more "independent"
characters, with better communication skills, travelers are going to expect to be able to talk with
them. Since providing a number of fully independent characters is likely to involve extensive cost
and development time, developers are likely to use story techniques that divert the traveler from
communicating –– without it being obvious that that is what is going on:
- Provide non-communicative secondary or background characters. Since the
traveler is supposed to be a stranger in most dram environments, it would be natural for
characters-on-the-street to be "leave-me-alone" or "shy" characters –– unwilling to just
drop everything and take up a conversation (especially with the sort of obnoxious traveler
who would run around on the street bothering characters).
- Make key characters unavailable. It will be useful to track the whereabouts of
travelers to be able to reduce the number of face-to-face contacts with virtual characters
whom the traveler expects to be able to talk to. The "dodge" technique is a natural one for
a computer story environment.
- Divert the traveler. dram environments which have access to a database of
traveler likes and dislikes have the advantage of being able to "lure" or "repel" the
traveler, and thus control their physical direction, or the nature of conversation. For
example, if a traveler is known to really like strawberries (I happen to be eating some
now :) ), a strawberries & cream vendor can suddenly appear and move down a particular
street. If a traveler is known to be particularly averse to discussing the mating habits of
South American swallows, a "trapped" group of characters can suddenly find the subject
terribly interesting and "herd" the traveler somewhere else.
The most consistent use of this technique is likely to involve the story guide, who should be able to direct
characters in particular directions for "very good reasons".

Quality of Communication with Characters

In some long story forms, such as a series of novels or a daily soap opera, story visitors get to feel that
they ―know‖ characters, in the same way that they might get to know the life of a particularly colorful, but
distant, relative. Because drams will allow travelers to interact with characters directly, sometimes for
extended periods of time, the possibility of ―getting to know‖ characters is greatly expanded, and it
becomes important for travelers to be given realistic expectations about the level of communication they
will experience. Where traveler-character interaction is designed to be relatively open-ended, story
developers not only need to find ways for characters to avoid travelers, they will also need to make sure
that the communication is appropriate to the story, and that familiarity with a character happens
―naturally‖ during the course of the dram experience. We could bundle all of this under the heading
―spending quality time with characters‖.
Establishing Expectations. Media researchers know well that the expectations generated for a story
experience, such as a novel or a film, need to fairly closely match the actual experience of story visitors,
otherwise friend-to-friend word-of-mouth will report ―It‘s not nearly as interesting as they say in the ads,‖
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and soon sales for the story are likely to plummet. drams are going to be especially sensitive to disparities
between expectation and follow-through in terms of the kind of communication travelers have with
characters. Think back a moment to a disappointment you had with a childhood toy: the doll that was
supposed to be soft and cuddly; the computer game that was advertised as being ―as realistic as walking
into a football stadium‖.
I can already hear the hype surrounding drams: ―So lifelike, you‘ll think you‘re a family member.‖ ―Get
to play with your favorite cartoon characters as much as you‘d like.‖ Because one key goal of the dram
developer is to keep the traveler involved in the story, and because virtual reality products had an early
history of delivering much less than promised, it will be important for drams to actively underplay
expectations, and to let pleased travelers spread the word about exciting new products.
Story-Appropriate Interaction. One of the problems encountered by actors who do interactive theater
performances is that story visitors (the audience) are constantly trying to throw them out of character, to
ask period-inappropriate questions, or to find out more about the story than should be revealed at some
particular point. For some audience members, getting to be a part of the story brings out their worst
schoolyard instincts. Interactive theater is usually very tightly controlled, and carries with it many of the
social rules for interaction, so you can imagine how much trouble obstreperous dram travelers (of any
age) could cause.
Of course, drams will have the advantage of using characters who aren‘t also actors, and therefore can
only respond ―in character‖ to questions that are outside of their range of knowledge. ―How about
Manchester United this year?‖ ―Manchester has been a united city for nigh onto three hundred years, sir.‖
A larger problem surfaces when the story presents a problem to be solved or where the lives of characters
are being disclosed in some particular sequence. In these situations, specific memory blocks may have to
be placed for characters with lower levels of independence., and more independent characters may have
to be ―warned‖ about travelers in much the same way as you might tell friends that anything they say to
your Aunt Felicita will have wider circulation than the local newspaper, and with faster delivery. Or, in a
period dram, characters might be warned that ―Dr.Soames is said to have direct connections to the
Surrete.‖ For drams where secrecy is quite important, travelers may need to be given an explicit set of
rules of behavior, and be monitored by story control, with warnings and penalties given by designated
―referee‖ characters.
On the other side of the issue, travelers have every right to expect that characters will seem ―authentic‖,
with the level of authenticity a point of negotiation between traveler and story guide or dram assistant. It
makes perfect sense to have several levels of the ThreeMusketeers dram, some of which require
proficiency in swordplay, and others which feature various levels of French usage. Each of these levels
can contain either automated or semi-independent characters, since by ―growing‖ characters we can, to
some degree, determine the way they interact with the story world.
―Natural” Communication Patterns. The aspect of the traveler/character relationship that may be the
most difficult to manage is the natural process by which people get to know, and form opinions about one
another. For travelers to feel even marginally comfortable with virtual characters, the relationships will
need to feel ―right‖, which means to say that characters will, at a minimum, need to be able to share likes
and dislikes, personal history, opinions about others, and occupational stories. This assumes that character
speaking, listening, and imperfect memory skills will also need to be more or less socially and culturally
appropriate, including non-verbal interaction. That‘s a tall order for computer mediated characters, since
it assumes an unprecedented level of unification of the physical, social, and psychological sciences.
However, these behaviors can be phased in, especially elements such as like/dislike and personal
histories, which I discuss in the chapters on virtual characters. The key here is to make sure to move away
from game and cartoon models of character behavior, and toward more realistic simulations. Much of the
groundwork has already been done. It just has to be applied to virtual stories in a consistent way.
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Interacting with Other Travelers

Why Share the Experience? Although extensive occupational, educational, or therapeutic drams might
be best experienced between a single traveler and a story world full of characters, drams primarily
intended for entertainment will want to take advantage of the human desire to gather together to play and
to discuss the activity they‘re involved in. This could be quiet communication, as in film or theater
experiences, or more active interaction, as in role playing games where participants spend a fair amount
of time chatting with each other as well as playing the game, or interactive theater, where there may be
clues to be discovered and a whodunit to be solved by the group.
Within the dram experience, sharing with other travelers can be a source of great fun, adventure, or
solace, or, as in life, it could also be a major headache.
Recognizing One Another. In situations where travelers are taking on the persona of a character, or
using a character double, and especially where traveler movements and actions will be automatically
translated into character appropriate form (―simchar‖), travelers will both need some way of revealing
themselves as travelers and also of hiding that identity from other travelers. The solution could be as
simple as some standard physical mark that announces travelers to each other. Or, there could be a faint
glow around a traveler double as it first comes into view. Whatever the solution, travelers should have the
option to turn communication off so they can role play more or less transparently. If approaches like
―simchar‖ aren‘t used, it will often be all too easy to see which characters are travelers, and, to my mind,
will make the experience much less interesting.
Communicating with One Another. Practically any covert form of communication you‘ve seen in sci-fi
films can be used to establish communication. Voices in one another‘s ear, visual control panels where
other travelers can be seen in inset windows, and even ―surf‘s-up‖ panels where you can experience
another traveler‘s sensory experiences. The trick is being able to choose who you talk to and avoiding
having your experience interrupted by others.
Respecting Each Other. .The current ―chat room‖ model of communication is largely unworkable for
dram experiences where you are actually interacting with other characters, although it is potentially useful
for situations where travelers are ghosting characters and playing a game or solving some mystery.
Developers will need to find ways to allow travelers to distance themselves from fellow travelers and/or
to automate/police rules of respectful behavior. Otherwise the experience becomes a free-for-all that
makes it difficult for travelers to involve themselves. For example, I just left a cyber café which is
devoted to gaming. The teenagers were having a great time talking with each other in-person and chatting
with others online as they played, but their interaction with the characters was limited to killing, stealing
from, or avoiding them – not what we usually think of as ―communication‖ or a true story experience.
Crowd Control. A problem immediately encountered by early online graphical chat world developers
(such as The Palace and World‘s Chat) was how to keep the number of travelers who could see each
other‘s personas low enough in each scene so they weren‘t packed together like cereal in a box. Various
schemes were tried, including only allowing a certain number of people into a chat world before the entire
world was ―cloned‖, restricting the visualization of other chat room visitors to the nearest few people, and
so forth. This made it extraordinarily difficult for friends to hook up in these rooms online unless they
knew for a fact that there would be very few people in the chat world, or unless they had access to other
―tricks‖ that would allow them to see each other. And when we attempted online performances using
public versions of these worlds, you can imagine the result. drams will need to carefully manage crowd
behavior because, in general, the experiences are intended to be stories that you share with friends.
- Traveler-Dram & Traveler-Character Ratios. It‘s going to be crucial to carefully restrict the
numbers of travelers in individual drams – or in particular sections of very large dram story worlds.
It seems to me that it would be a good idea to set out a standard of interaction for particular kinds
of dram experiences, expressed either as the number of travelers that are optimum for a dram
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experience as a whole, or presented as a simple ratio of travelers to the number of characters in

situations where travelers are permitted a fair amount of interaction with characters. I would expect
these ratios to approach 1 (fewer travelers) for drams where there is a great deal of possible
interaction. Perhaps a model ratio might be the number of friends who ordinarily go out socially
within any particular culture.
- Cloning Story worlds. It‘s pretty clear that story worlds will have to be cloned. Where this
becomes a problem is with ongoing experiences which have a number of traveler participants and
where interaction is high. If travelers can influence the way the world develops, then the number of
travelers who can influence one particular cloned version of a world will need to be limited in some
way, otherwise the travelers will be entirely determining the direction of the world, which becomes
a pure roleplay exercise rather than a ―dramatic‖ experience, and, ultimately, a lot less satisfying to
the traveler. One way of handling this for worlds filled with automatic characters or fully
independent characters will be to keep the original world available only for ghosting by developers
and to restrict traveler interaction to cloned story worlds. Travelers can choose to stick indefinitely
with one particular cloned version of a story world, influencing its development, or keep getting
cloned world updates, where previous interaction with characters doesn‘t exist in characters‘
memories. Memory is the key issue here. If you want to be remembered by other characters, you
have to spend some time in their world. Sounds familiar, doesn‘t it?

Experiencing the Story

When we are engaged in a story, we tend to forget the outside environment and move into the fantasy
world the storyteller has prepared for us. As we move through the story, we evaluate what is going on and
make moment to moment choices. ―This part is boring; I think I‘ll skip it.‖ ―That actor sounds as though
he‘s reading his lines, but he has a good karate kick.‖ ―The house they‘re demolishing reminds me of my
Aunt Wozza‘s place in Bluch Andor.‖ We will disengage from a story when we are distracted by
something outside of the story, when something in the story forces us out of it, or when our current
attention span has been exceeded. Sometimes people will move in and out of a story, skip parts, stop to
say something about it, or just put it aside for another day.
Travelers in drams are likely to have a great deal of control over how they experience a story. For one
thing, if they tire of a particular scene or character, they can simply move on to another. If they don‘t like
the level of activity, they might be able to change it. When their attention span falters, a new character
might be able to revive it, or they may want to put the entire experience on hold for another day.
But when travelers have so much control, how can they actually experience a story? After all, most story
forms tell story visitors the story in a predetermined order of events and visitors accept the parts of it that
they really like and really dislike, and, unless they have exceptional memory for detail, forget the rest.
The subtle difference with drams is that travelers are not only in the middle of the story, moving through
it, but sometimes will hop in and out of multiple stories – like having free reign in a movie theater
complex which has a large number of films playing simultaneously. Travelers ―could‖ hop in and out of
people‘s lives the way people do when channel surfing with TV remote controls, but sooner or later
something will interest them and they will want to follow those people to see what happens.
The art of story development with fixed script drams – where everything is preset –– will be to lure,
entice, entrap, bribe, cajole, trick, fool, and seduce travelers into moving along story pathways. This is a
perfect avenue for adapting existing stories.
With automated character drams, it becomes a question of tailoring character personalities to be
maximally interesting to travelers. For example, if you have a choice of characters to deal with on your
dram vacation in Switzerland, you will probably want to get to know them first by interacting in some
trial experience, and then choose which ones you want to spend time with.
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Finally, an element of dram flow that only a story form like interactive theater approximates is the ability
to ―get to know‖ a character in a long running relationship. The difference with drams is that the character
can also get to know the traveler. That forms the basis of a relationship, and it is relationship that offers
the greatest promise for the use of dramatic scenarios in education, therapy, and work.
Being In and Out of Control. Even the most elaborate, expensive, and well-researched dram experiences
will fail if the traveler ―just isn‘t comfortable being in the damned thing‖. There is a certain amount of
discomfort associated with most human story activities – from learning to read to figuring out the controls
on a TV remote control. But because the traveler ―lives‖ for a period of time in a dram –– often connected
directly to equipment –– the level of potential threat is closer to that of traveling to a different country.
Travelers want to feel safe and more-or-less comfortable; don‘t want to spent half their time finding their
way around, and want to be able to understand what‘s happening around them.
- Feeling Safe and More-or-Less Comfortable. Not many people will remain seated in their
favorite beach chair reading a novel after they hear gunshots or feel waves rushing over their legs,
nor will that Amazon adventure dram vacation have quite the same appeal if story control forgets
that you have a phobia about snakes, or if your husband takes to wandering back from the ―village
of the virgins‖ just in time for breakfast.
- Equipment. Remember that time you sat on the lawn chair and it collapsed under you? Well, just
imagine being suspended upside down ten feet off the ground in an exoskeleton apparatus during
the ―ConquestofEverest‖ dram just as the power goes out. That‘s an extreme example of the kinds
of equipment malfunctions that can produce very, very poor word-of-mouth for dram experiences.
Less dramatic, but more annoying, will be minor inconveniences like multi-directional treadmill
hiccups on that walking tour of medieval London, or the tropical paradise tour where the
temperature is zero degrees C. most of the time. Engineers will be tempted to include all sorts of
built-in controls that will allow the technically sophisticated traveler to make their own equipment
adjustments, which sounds practical until you realize that many citizens of hi-tech countries don‘t
know how to operate all of the functions on their handheld TV remotes. dram equipment must
operate at the appliance level, with self-analysis and self-repair built-in wherever possible.
- Story Fitness. In general, we don‘t expect to get injured during a story. If we choose level nine of
that ‗Mars Survival‘ dram, and if the story program has no reliable way to tell that we‘re only
capable of level four (on a good day), not only do we swallow a lot of red sand, we also might just
need a non-virtual ambulance. Pre-testing traveler physical condition, and, in strenuous drams,
monitoring bio-signs, is more responsible and ultimately more profitable than getting a signed legal
release.
- Out-Routes. The Angel character –– who gives warnings of impending disaster and has the
ability to modify or end the dram to prevent said disaster –– is a last resort. Other built-in
mechanisms should allow the traveler to quietly modify physical environment or skill requirements
without causing loss of face. For example, it‘s one thing for the Tour de France wannabe to sign up
with his buddies to compete real-time (via dram apparatus) in Stage 15, perhaps dreaming of the
champagne toasts and the congratulatory kisses at the end, and quite another to force him to keep
up the pace in the eighty degree heat and driving rain outside Lyon. Why not allow the couch
potato rider to coast along in the middle of the pack?
- Phobias & Other Extreme Responses. Although drams will certainly be used for therapeutic
reduction of extreme responses to ―normal‖ aspects of the outside world – such as fear of lamp
posts –– pre-screening of traveler ―tendencies‖, say by encouraging travelers to regularly
participate in sampling drams where common ―problem situations‖ are tested, will allow the dram
assistant to offer an appropriate range of experiences, or allow the dram story program to introduce
a secondary character who removes the traveler from potentially unpleasant situations. This isn‘t to
say that there won‘t be times when that bat-phobic traveler will insist on being locked in the castle
with the vampire, but pre-testing will allow the dram developer to decide on acceptable levels of
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risk and to plan appropriate alternative experiences or strategies.

- Stress Busters. We want to experience stories because we are capable of empathizing with the
characters. Even though the unpleasant woman on the screen might make us squirm because of her
similarity to someone in our own lives, we take it to be a part of the story experience. In fact, we
deliberately use some stories to make us uncomfortable or fearful – as in horror or action/adventure
films. Because Virtual Drama can immerse us in story worlds for considerable periods of time, the
traveler needs to avoid being overstressed by situations. Most story forms give us a zone of safety,
so that even though the nasty dinosaur pops up on screen and we scream, we don‘t drop our
popcorn and soil the theater seats in various ways. In drams, the dinosaur might walk out of the
swamp in front of us. We might be stuck with that obnoxious spice merchant for hours. We might
find that dram family we‘ve created much more amenable than our own.
- Knowing Where to Go and What to Do. I‘ve suggested that travelers use training modules to
acclimate to the environment of the story world and employ the story guide to get up to speed on
recent story events. This is because it is difficult to follow a story – much less become a part of it –
when you don‘t know what to do, what to say, where to go, or even who you are. Once travelers
master the basics of the story world, they can relax and engage the story.
Engaging the Story. Once travelers have entered the story world and feel more or less safe and in
control, it‘s time for them to ―engage‖ the story – to allow themselves to give up disbelief in the fact that
the story isn‘t ―real‖. You could say that the evolution of human civilization has been marked by a
number of shifts in attitude toward the importance of life in the ―real‖ world (observable activity) versus
life in our internal world (unobservable). Those societies which favor action –– or fear internal life –– will
try to place restrictions on storytelling, fantasy, daydreaming, reading, and other inner crafts. Societies
which value the inner life will reward skilled practitioners, especially where they can communicate their
inner worlds to others.
In our techno-cultures, where twenty percent of waking time may be devoted to the consumption of
stories, and an additional 70% to internal monologues of various sorts, the ability to suspend disbelief has
less to do with making the transition between the real world and the story world than it has to do with the
ability of the story world to meet or exceed visitor expectations, and to present the visitor with interesting
or novel characters and situations which are within the visitor‘s ―fantasy appreciation zone‖. drams will
also want to involve travelers in the story world to the point where they role play characters and even
integrate virtual representations of themselves into the ongoing life of the story community.
Moment to Moment Expectations & Beliefs. When we purchase a novel, our expectations are based on
previous experience with the author, word-of-mouth from relatives and friends, and the extent to which
advertising has peaked our interest.
- Hype versus reality in 4D. The adventure travel model is appropriate for drams because
travelers live in the story. It is all around them. If you have been led to believe that you will be
involved in a realistic depiction of feudal Japanese society guided by an expert in the period,
imagine finding yourself in a blurred and cartoony landscape led by a guide who knows less about
the period than your average Western high school teacher. Everything that you see, every
inaccurate or simplistic bit of information, every wavy temple front, becomes an invalidation of
your experience. You begin to look for problems. The only thing that might save the experience is
joking about it with your fellow travelers or attempting to ignore it as you follow your own
personal satori. Not good for word-of-mouth. As in foreign travel, an extremely long dram
experience might offer travelers moments of solace, beauty, or excitement that transcend the rest of
the journey, but theme park operators have learned the hard way that unless you provide a
consistently interesting (or at least pleasant) experience ―moment-to-moment‖ for a large portion of
the visit, the L-GO effect (let‘s-get-out-of-here) spreads rapidly.
- Boredom and Change. For producers and marketers, the sight of test film visitors shifting
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around in their seats, or children running out to get popcorn just before that ―magic moment‖ is
terrifying. They know that they can lose target audiences for a little while, but when those dating
couples stop watching the screen altogether, it‘s time to kiss that multi-million dollar investment
goodbye. In drams, the developer can build-in mechanisms to allow the traveler to choose where to
go, who to see and talk to, and how long to stay in one place. Still, if the story world is simply a set
of gimmicks (as in many current computer game environments), without real story involvement
possibilities for the traveler, the effect will be the same as the seat-shifting teen. Low engagement
equals decreased attention and increased L-GO.
- Problem Handling. Theme parks –– the Disney complexes, Universal Studios, Sea World, etc. –
expend a great deal of effort smoothing visitor flow as they move through the park. They know that
parts of the experience will be boring or frustrating, so they take special pains to keep the visitor
involved in the magic of the place by keeping them entertained, keeping them participating in the
story. Theme parks tend to be very careful when it comes to visitor safety or personal discomfort.
Many of them have more safety inspectors and undercover police than mid-sized towns. They are
constantly scanning for the slightest sign of trouble, and they intervene, sometimes in very clever
ways, before things get out of hand. For drams this not only means making the best use of angel
and guide characters, it also means doing constant / rapid analyses of traveler flow that will allow
for ―well-ahead-of-time‖ interventions. The half hour after you slammed into a wall tends to be
much more memorable than the twenty-three hours when everything was fine.
Exploring the Story. The major selling points of the dram story form are the ―you-are-there‖ and ―stay as
long as you‘d like‖ aspects. At first these worlds will be short duration novelty worlds. ―The man riding
that big white fish cursed at me, daddy!‖ Gradually their sophistication will reach the level of interactive
theater (with really, really good sets), then the living novel, and, eventually, the adventure vacation and
work-study-play world.
In more sophisticated dram experiences, travelers will be like people who are visiting various towns for
the purpose of deciding if they‘d like to move there. With or without a dedicated story guide, these
travelers will want to involve themselves gradually in the story world, starting with tours and event-
driven activities, then spending a bit more time in specific ―neighborhoods‖, meeting new people. At
some point travelers may decide to become a part of the community, and will need to decide what role
they will play (personality, education, appearance, etc.) and how often they will visit.
- Story Tours, Schedules, and Maps. Story world demos are likely to feature guided tours of the
environment. Intrigued, but wary, travelers will want to explore on their own, and will need the
usual travel aids – in virtual form. For example, if you are in FairyTaleTown hunting for
ThreeLittlePigsVille, you might want to consult a pull-down aerial map, or just hop onto a magic
swan to take you there. You might also decide to fight your way across the DeepDarkMoor. In
dram worlds where important /peak/hi-stim events are more-or-less scheduled, travelers will want
to know when something is going to happen, how long it will take them to get there (―What do you
mean, I have to crawl!‖), and the normal methods/levels of participation. In worlds filled with
automated characters, some of this scheduling may be fairly ―ad hoc‖, as story world control
realizes at the very last minute that the two pandas are about to give birth to ―something or other‖
over in the cliff restaurant. Travelers who have chosen notification options might hear a voice
saying ―I hear you like card-playing pandas who live in a sushi restaurant. True?‖
- Examining Story Options. Approaching a new, fairly sophisticated dram world will be a lot like
opening an extremely complicated (and sometimes, unassembled) toy. Travelers will want to try
out a number of options. For drams, this could mean almost anything, including choices of how the
world will be viewed (the ghosting, surfing, hitching, diving thing), language, level of interaction
(―I think I‘ll just watch the mud demons for now.‖), choices of character and place. You might
even be able to make the world up as you go along.
- Clearly, having so many choices is likely to paralyze the average traveler, so pre-training and the
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services of a story guide will be invaluable. ―Hmm. Should I be the dolphin king or the ancient,
magic boulder that the dolphin king mates on. So many choices.‖
- Trolling for Characters and Events. If you‘ve spent a really long time visiting a foreign city,
you know that tours and pageants and watching the frog hopping contests gets to the ―been-there-
done-that‖ stage relatively rapidly, even if you are a professional frog breeder. Gradually you want
to meet people (or amphibians) who live in the city. You want to experience ―authentic‖ events.
You just want to take a bit of a nap in the shadow of the four moons of Yorka for a while. ―Sorry,
your majesty, I can‘t save the kingdom from the Wulks. I gotta catch up on my sleep.‖
This is an area where drams start to come into their own. If you have a competent story guide, or
have developed your own sources of reliable information in the story world, you can start to focus
on particular aspects of the culture that interest you. Get under the skin of FrogCity, so to speak.
You will spend slightly longer amounts of time examining parts of the story, and you may even
decide to play a formal role or park your bags at the hotel and move into a thatched cottage.
- Deciding Where You Fit in the Story world. Once you find one or more dram ―storyhoods‖
that seem comfortable (or ―uncomfortable‖ if that‘s your heart‘s desire), and have spent some time
ghosting or touristing, you may want to become a part of the community, perhaps first as an official
visitor – on business or visiting relatives. Travelers will often want to try several different roles to
see what fits. Remember, the most successful drams aren‘t likely to require you to learn all those
Basque customs right away. They will use something similar to what I‘m calling ―simchar‖ to
automatically make those translations for you.
- Creating/Selecting Your Story Character. In situations where travelers are going to play
characters, they will either be playing the role of a pre-existing (possibly famous) character, or
designing a character from scratch. One way or another, it will be important for travelers to know
―what they‘re getting into‖ by playing a particular character. Will she be expected to run long
distances and ford a stream? Is she a linguist? Is she a ―he‖ of some other species? Since few
people have the ability to roleplay convincingly over a long period of time –– especially famous
characters –– the ―simchar‖ process will be particularly useful, since travelers will be able to have
words & deeds translated into culturally appropriate terms/actions. It will also be important for
travelers to do their homework on both the character and the story –– especially when multiple
travelers are sharing drams.
- Involving Yourself in the Story Community. For dram experiences that expect a long term
commitment from travelers, that homework is likely to be extensive –– more like moving to
unknown country. Hopefully, developers of such worlds will provide acclimatization modules, and
traveler occupants will prove neighborly.
- Memory Marking. If you want to remember aspects of a dram – either for that live-in personal
travel dram that will stupefy your friends in 4D, or for your own uses, like remembering 1) how to
climb up a waterfall, 2) the view from the five thousand foot citadel, or 3) that loving couple on the
bench in Hyde Park – you will need to have some way of signaling story control to say ―I want to
be able to replay the last 10 minutes.‖ There are any number of verbal or non-verbal ways to do
this. The technique needs to be unobtrusive, though, and travelers need to know that they will be
able to take their experiences with them. ―Hon, baby Barbara would love chasing this giant
cockroach.‖
- Preparing Your Character Double for Life in drams. Communities of largely independent
characters may require that a traveler keep a double in the virtual world when they can‘t be present.
This will be done to maintain some actual semblance of community for both characters and
travelers. If a traveler character double is a specific fictional story character, the roleplay should be
relatively straightforward, if time consuming. Where the traveler has actually created the character,
traveler and double will have to set up a system of communication so that the traveler stays up-to-
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date with story events

- Good Times in the Story. Although some drams will be set up like games, and others will have
specific didactic purposes, the most intriguing sorts of drams are likely to feel like visiting a
strange new country. As in any travel experience, there will be places where you feel more
comfortable than others, but all-in-all it will be a place you want to return to again and again.
Keeping these sorts of experiences from becoming stale and commonplace requires a commitment
to innovation and the development of a true spirit of community.

Post-Story Flow

Ending the Story

Dram Timing Situations. In most story forms the story is either just waiting there to be read or viewed at
one‘s leisure, or else has a very distinct time frame –– as in Theater/ TV/ Film. An exception is
Interactive Theater, where the story visitors communicate directly with characters.
Interactive Theater producers handle this potentially unmanageable situation by organizing the story time
into blocks, with set amounts of time for interaction and non-interaction, with characters providing the
―cues‖ to move from block to block. This is possible because many Interactive Theater experiences
maintain the fiction that they are being performed at actual social functions, such as weddings, funerals,
train trips, lodge meetings, and so forth –– which have natural divisions.
Drams which are 1) entirely ―ghosted‖, or 2) have very limited or controlled interaction between travelers
and the story world, can be handled in similar ways –– by setting out blocks of time and creating scenario
elements that fit those blocks. For example: 1) where travelers are ghosting a community of fully
independent characters, they may need to be reminded that no special accommodation will be made for
their presence, and they will have to find a ―natural‖ place in the interaction for leave-taking; 2) in a
comedy dram where travelers choose characters and situations and are allowed to call out suggestions at
pre-planned spots, the entire experience can be timed fairly exactly.
The real challenge for dram developers is to come up with story modules that allow travelers to pre-set a
time-frame, interact with characters, and still have a complete story experience: beginning, middle, and
end. That notion of ―complete story experience‖ marks the difference between ―scenes‖ or ―segments‖ or
―sketches‖ and ―stories‖ in the subconscious of most story visitors and in the evaluation criteria of many
people who buy stories. The difference has to do with the fullness of character development, the
sophistication of plot, and the moment-to-moment ―flow‖ which brings the story visitor through to a
satisfactory conclusion, with all pertinent questions answered and at least some story issues resolved.
In the 24 hour marathon theater form –– where authors are given a topic, some criteria, and a specific cast
and have to complete a 10+ minute play overnight (for full, off-script performance the following evening)
–– this structural notion of a ―complete story‖ becomes a major headache. Most experienced playwrights
can knock off the outline of a sketch in a couple of hours and then ―work it‖ for maximum impact, but
giving characters/situations enough ―depth‖ so that story visitors think they‘ve seen a ―play‖ requires
rapid, moment-to-moment (panic-producing) analysis of the sort that computer processes will need to
accomplish in Virtual Drama.
One solution for drams is to prepare possibilities in advance by taking automated characters with
relatively low levels of independence and having them run through a large number of possible situations
―quick time‖ –– using pre-existing or pre-determined story structures and other characters playing the role
 Virtual Drama | 184

of travelers. In this way, methods of promoting/inhibiting interaction between travelers and characters
can be designed in advance, and story timing, motivations, event triggers and conclusions can be pre-set.
If the dram allows for traveler psych, like/dislike, and current physiological state profiles, the options can
be narrowed even further –– allowing for an experience that feels like a fully customized story, but which
ends just in time to get the non-virtual kids from play group.
Brief Your Character Double. In situations where the traveler is going to leave a double in the story
environment, it may also be important to leave specific instructions concerning behavior, travel, and
expenditures –– much like dealing with a live-at-home teenager. Will doubles resent this intrusion?
Probably, unless a ―blind-spot‖ for this behavior is built-in, much like an hypnotic injunction.
Say Goodbye to Characters and Guides. When travelers spend more than a certain amount of tme
interacting with characters, they develop relationships with them. The relationships with Story Guides ––
who spend a lot of time helping travelers navigate and understand the ongoing story world –– are likely to
be especially close in relative short duration drams. For this reason, I‘d expect dram-based rituals to be
developed on the manner of leave-taking. Just ―bye, I‘m out of here‖ won‘t do.
Physically Leaving the Story. Some sort of stylized ―exit strategy‖ will be useful in designing story
worlds, especially in on-going situations where the traveler doesn‘t want to just disappear like a ghost.
Story exits can be disguised in ways that only travelers can see. For long-term drams where travelers
don‘t leave doubles to take their place in story worlds, these exit points (and their ramifications in the
story world) will have to be carefully considered. Alien abduction is a useful sci-fi concept, but not when
half of the citizens of a particular town get abducted once a day !
Debrief Story and Sales Guides. Once travelers have left the story itself, it‘s a good time to let the dram
assistant know which aspects of the dram they like/dislike and to re-view a list of marked events the
traveler wants to save for re-play / re-experience. This will ned to be handled subtly, using an approach
approved by the traveler.
Assuming that the traveler has time, this would also be an ideal time to preview drams taking place in the
same or similar story worlds.

Returning to the “Real” World

When story world leave-taking has been completed, it will be time to return to ―the real world‖. This
includes equipment de-briefing, discussing the experience with the dram assistant, and physical de-
immersion.
The Equipment De-Briefing. After travelers move out of the story world, they are likely to return to a
virtual immersion / de-immersion space provided by equipment manufacturers. In this world they can
report equipment problems, make sensory adjustments, and other wise deal with the physical aspects of
the experience.
De-brief the dram Assistant. This will also be an ideal time to interact with the dram assistant ––
making comments about the dram experience, deciding which dram to experience next, and so forth. The
dram assistant can also broadcast the travelers‘ comments to public forums and marketing organizations –
– may well pay for these oh-so-pertinent comments in various ways.
Physical De-Immersion. Involvement in virtual worlds will be an intense physiological process ––
especially where travelers are using movement apparatus or if they have some sort of direct connection
(e.g. cortical) to sensory aspects of the story world. For this reason, travelers must be gradually returned
to ―base level‖ physiological and psychological activity. Most of us have experienced that ―I am a
zombie‖ feeling after spending hours watching TV or glued to a computer. Imagine the disorientation of
spending 14 hours climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in a snow storm and suddenly being returned to a tiny,
 Virtual Drama | 185

overheated Tokyo apartment.

I expect standard de-immersion scenarios to be used, with a high degree of traveler customization to keep
them interesting. De-immersion from hypnosis might be a good model here. Hypnotists often bring
subjects into some neutral space before gradually re-introducing the actual physical surroundings. This
allows senses, emotions, and thought processes time to detach from often intense emotional states.
Removing Equipment. After travelers have been returned to the current sensory environment, they will
need to remove glasses, helmets, suits, exoskeletons and other helper apparatus. Since equipment seems
to always provide some element of risk, and since travelers are likely to still be slightly disoriented
(especially if they‘ve found ways to shortcut de-immersion), care should be taken to make equipment
removal as smooth and as foolproof as possible.
Spreading the Word. Although enterprising dram equipment and story developers are likely to find
ways to spread comments about dram experiences to a broad sample of potential travelers, those sorts of
sources are likely to be suspect to dram consumers, and so I‗d expect dram assistants to perform the
function of letting various forums, review networks, etc. have detailed information about travelers‘
responses to a particular dram. Assuming that certain generalized profiles for the traveler are also made
available along with likes and dislikes, a fairly useful network of information can be established.
The other, somewhat slower, method of dissemination is good old word-of-mouth, where groups of
friends, relatives, and co-workers compare notes. When added to professional drams, word-of-mouth
recommendations will still be the most effective sales tool –– especially for expensive, long-term drams.
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 Virtual Drama | 187

Measuring Story Flow in Drams

Basic Units of Story Flow In Drams

It goes without saying that we will need to be able to measure flow in drams – both as part of the story
development process and during the experience itself. Unfortunately, measuring an ongoing experience is
a bit like examining a leaf floating down a stream. Even when you use recording equipment to analyze it,
you still have to decide how far down the stream you are going to follow the leaf. Where are you going to
start? Where are you going to end? Where do you place the equipment? Is that the right leaf? Where the
hell did the leaf go!?
Since ―story flow‖ has to do with the interaction between the traveler and the story world, and since
Virtual Drama is a computer mediated story form, we should be able to examine travelers as they move
through the story stream. But how much interaction do we study? Do we sample bits? Look for key
indicators? Track emotions?
The answer, of course, will differ depending on the technology being used, the nature of the immersive
story experience, and legal decisions concerning privacy. For this reason, let me just suggest some terms I
find useful in thinking about dram story flow.
- ―Story Moments‖, ―Story Chunks‖, ―Traveler Tracks‖, and ―Story Events‖ describe ways of
focusing on specific aspects of story flow.
- ―Maze Flow‖, ―Ripple Flow‖, and ―Community Flow‖ describe overall patterns of story flow.
Story Moments are 3D snapshots of story flow over a very brief period of time, and roughly correspond
to frame-by-frame analysis in film. For example, we might be looking at a story moment just before a
character throws up. The test audience is responding "badly" to the event (PR-speak for throwing up on
the equipment and physically assaulting the testers) and the developer suggests that the 15 seconds prior
to the situation provides disorientation that ―enhances‖ the experience a bit too much. By examining/
discussing the interaction between the audience and the story over that "story moment;" the director's
hypothesis can be validated/ disproved.
So ... a ―story moment‖ is a small unit of dram space/time that is defined by the developer as being
significant in some way. It doesn‘t have to involve characters other than the traveler, and no formal
―story‖ elements have to be present.
Story Chunks take a developer-sized bite out of a dram – through any number of functional layers or
processes, for any length of time, for any number of travelers. This extraordinarily vague concept
recognizes that dram troubleshooting may have to be re-defined ―on the fly‖ – like repairing a squadron
of aircraft in flight, or adjusting a complex recipe while cooking. For example, certain travelers might be
having ―really‖ unpleasant experiences in several different spaces on ―WaterWorld‖. The experiences are
 Virtual Drama | 188

similar. Is the equipment at fault? Is there some sort of trigger mechanism?

The troubleshooting program might isolate the offensive ―chunks‖ for each traveler, correlate the
experience, and try to determine what went wrong. Since these travelers might jump through time,
become objects or characters, or change the environment/story as they go along, it won‘t be enough to
track traveler behavior (see ―Traveler Tracks‖, below). The troubleshooter will also want to grab as much
of the environment (including spaces, controls, monitors, etc.) as possible. With a vast number of
variables and numerous physical and computational processes involved in this ―grabbing‖, it will be easy
to get mired in detail.
The term ―chunks‖ suggests an irregular piece of a multi-dimensional jig saw puzzle.
Traveler Tracks is one of those concepts born out of absolute necessity. If we were to take an objective
view of a particular dram experience, we will see multiple travelers interacting with characters and with
the space. However, in some drams travelers will be able to jump to other places, times, or dimensions,
put themselves on ―hold‖, or change the environment as they move through it. This calls for some way of
following the trails of individual travelers no matter where they lead. ―Traveler Tracks‖ follow a
particular traveler, starting from any place in a dram and going to any other place, in any dimension, at
any time, and keep a record of the journey.
For example, ―Traveler 262 jumped from the throne room to the slime pit carrying the sack of mushrooms
at 1:26:32 dramtime (the amount of time since she entered the dram), 14:26 mytime (the time at the
traveler‘s location in the real world), touched the golden disk and then went to year 3622 storytime (the
time in the story world) and asked the program to lower the ambient temperature to 86 degrees
Fahrenheit.
With Traveler Tracks, anything in the story world that isn‘t being interacted with or focused on by an
individual traveler doesn‘t exist. In a way, the track becomes a sensory envelope that surrounds the
traveler and captures information.
Story Events are segments of story flow that we recognize from daily life. A couple has an argument on-
screen. That's an event that could continue through several changes of setting, or each part of their
argument in a different setting could be defined as a separate event. As they are arguing, a person walks
behind them carrying a small child. That's an event. On the soundtrack, ominous music is building. You
get the picture. Story events are ―segments‖, ―scenes‖, ―takes‖, ―beats‖, ―layers‖ ―tracks‖ etc. They will
be defined differently by different observers, but it should always be possible to arrive at consensus.
Story events are so common that it‘s useful to define some subcategories. Note that there is considerable
overlap in these categories, since each one approaches the notion of an event from a slightly different
point of view.
Background Events are character actions and environmental changes which take place "behind"
or ―on the periphery of‖ the main actions and characters of a story. Their main purpose is to set
location, period, tone, and mood for the traveler. In many story forms background events are
descriptions intended to "set the scene" for an interaction between major characters. For example,
in a film, clouds gradually build up in the sky during an intensely emotional scene, until, at the
end, the sky opens up and it pours rain. Secondary characters rush by with and without umbrellas.
The music swells ominously and wildly. Each of these is a background event. All of them
together could be defined as a single background event.
Expected Events. There are certain activities performed by the main characters of stories ––
activities that we expect to see. Let's say that the story is set in a rural farming community in the
19th-century. Our character, Lisa, is baking bread and her husband, Nils, is repairing a harness as
they discuss the day's events in front of a roaring fire.
Although the main action of the story at this point is their conversation, we "expect" to see them
doing something that fits our image of what a rural farming couple of that period would be doing
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at night. It doesn't really matter that our expectations might be wrong –– that people of that time
period might well be reading novels or, given the cost of candles/lamp oil and the darkness of
rural nights, might be in bed (sleeping or creating more farm hands). The particular convention or
stereotype has already been established for us (often by mass media stories) and we expect to see
those activities.
A troublesome aspect of expected events has to do with portrayal of historical periods. Much of
what we know about the history of mankind comes to us through extremely biased sources. The
histories of kingdoms and institutions tend to be written by what we would now call public
relations people. This makes it particularly difficult when a storyteller is trying to counteract a
stereotype with a portrayal that comes from less biased historical or archeological sources. If the
expected behavior is very firmly implanted in the popular imagination, the new story may be
rejected.
I find hope in those Reality TV series which allow a family to live as others would in different
historical periods. From the perspective of a middle-class housewife actually living the life, the
19th Century seems quite a bit different than the view many upper class Victorian novelists have
offered us.
Character Events. Very often story creators want to give us insight into the personality or
emotional life of a particular character, and so they present personal mannerisms (say, a
character's tendency to use his sleeve as a handkerchief), or situations (say, the character steals
money from a homeless person) that are intended to establish the "character" of the character. The
character event can also be taking place literally within the character, as in novels or short stories
where the point of view lies in the mind or the senses of the character. Whether the event is
internal or external, it is still a character event.
For example, in the beginning of the film "Return of the Pink Panther" the main character totally
ignores a robbery taking place behind him as he is berating a blind beggar. The background scene
(and his lack of reaction to it) immediately sets up his character for story visitors. He is a
pompous fool.
To keep from boring story visitors with a lot of background detail lumped in one place, story
creators often distribute character events so that some of the events are displayed directly by the
character and other events consist of other characters talking about, or reacting to, the character.
In this way we get a lot of information without it seeming as though we're sitting through an
essay. The more experienced the storyteller, the more seamless the presentation of character
events will appear.
Key Events. When someone tells you what a story is about, they usually cover a few of the
major, or key, events. "There was this ship captain who was obsessed with this white whale. I
forget its name. Anyway, they get to sea and he's willing to destroy the ship and crew and their
profit margin just to catch this big, ugly, white whale..."
Key events are descriptions or actions that are crucial for the story visitor to have a full
understanding of the story. In other words, key events are what the story creator really wants you
to pay attention to. In some complex story forms that have a lot going on –– such as histories or
TV soap operas –– missing just a few key events can leave the story visitor totally confused.
It‘s always possible that story visitors will get distracted by events that aren‘t key to the story.
(―She whines just like my cousin Edwinna. I hate that.‖) When a number of visitors are
distracted.(―The whole cast is naked!‖) key events will be missed and the story itself is likely to
be in trouble.
In acted out story forms, key events may be entirely nonverbal –– as in a film where a major
character, whom we were led to believe to be just and honest, is seen destroying evidence that
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would exonerate his best friend from a charge of murder. Because we have seen this event we
now have a different opinion of this character and we expect different actions from him in the
future. So this ―character‖ event is also a key event.
In certain kinds of drams, key events might be internal to the mind of a particular character, or
may rest in the past history of a particular object that must be investigated by the traveler before
its significance is revealed.
Filler Events. Some activities in stories are primarily intended to take up time –– either as a way
of "springing" some event on the story visitor or as a way "stretching" the length of part of the
story to fit specific time criteria. For example, the teenagers taking a long and leisurely walk
through the vampire's mansion, or that extra five minutes of significant pauses added to your
favorite TV drama. Usually filler events are undertaken by the major characters in a story. You
can tell the difference between a character event and a filler event when you see something
happening in a story and you find yourself saying "Why are they doing that?" It may be that you
just don't understand what's going on, but it's more likely that either the story creator has some pet
description, or bit of dialog, or a "neat image" that they want to include –– whether or not it's
appropriate –– or they are stalling for time. I remember talking with a science fiction writer about
a particularly lengthy and quite beautiful description in a short story. When asked about its
significance, he replied, "I had to stretch the damned thing by 1000 words, or I wouldn't get the
full advance! So, I just borrowed it from another story I was writing."
Stim-Targeted Events. To determine whether an event is primarily stim-targeted, just look to see
whether the major effect of the event is to change pace or stimulation level, rather than to advance
the plot or provide character information.
The success of the violent action film genre stems partly from the ease with which that type of
film can be dubbed into multiple languages, and partly from the patterns of physiological arousal
they produce in story visitors, who are biologically primed to react to fear, flight, and
reproductive situations.
These physiological changes have been investigated for many years by film audience research
departments, and you'll notice that even though it doesn‘t seem to be possible to predict a ―hit‖
using formulas derived from this research, the patterns of ―hi-stim‖/ ―low-stim‖ activity you‘ll
find in most films fit basic intermittent reinforcement models.
In fact one of the problems faced by the action adventure film industry is that constant exposure
to hi-stim screen events raises target audience stimulation threshold levels to the point where so
much ―stim‖ is required to achieve desired physiological effects that films have to resort to
incredibly fast edits and booming surround sound to keep up levels.
Within drams, the ability to place travelers in situations which require heart pumping excitement
will be greatly enhanced, since the monster that is jumping at you from behind the church pew
will actually be behind you. Of course, events can also be targeted to be slow, melancholy, happy,
or any number of other natural human stimulation patterns.
There is also a ―reverse‖ use of stimulation-specific events. If a traveler‘s physiological activity is
being monitored, when a truly enjoyable (or boring) event comes along, it will be important for
story control to take note of the event so that future scenarios / dram selections can be modified
appropriately.
Taking note of stimulation-specific events can also serve a safety function. If a traveler, for
example, has an unannounced phobic reaction to whiteboards, future scenes can be modified to
remove the distressful element, or behavior modification programs can help the traveler deal with
the phobia through desensitization techniqus. Needless to say, safeguards have to be introduced to
prevent unauthorized use of these sorts of techniques.
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No-No Events. Some events disrupt story flow in ways that pull the traveler out of the story. For
example, if you are reading a book at the beach and a wave suddenly crashes over you. Or, three
quarters of the way through a standard detective novel, the author introduces a supernatural
character and you say ―Hunh?‖. Those are no-no events.
In drams, the two most likely sources of no-no events are:
- travelers who may try to influence the story in ways that are ―against the rules‖; and
- dram scenarios or characters that actively discourage travelers from participating in the
story (for example, by killing them immediately or shunning them).
For example, if a traveler enters an ongoing virtual community only once in a while, and if no
provision has been made to keep a character double for the traveler active in the community, it‘s
entirely possible that a visiting traveler might be totally ignored. The traveler then might be
impelled to do something inappropriate to get attention. Both of these are no-no events.
The enormous complexity of entire communities of virtual characters (automated or fully
independent) makes identification and targeting of no-no events fairly important. Instead of
having to watch every behavior all of the time, a no-no monitor can watch for certain pre-
determined events which require response. A good analogy would be a situation in which you
were asked to be a chaperone at a social gathering for teenagers. You don‘t want to be intrusive,
but you do want to make sure that the punch stays non-alcoholic, and that certain kinds of activity
don‘t get ―out of hand‖.

Patterns of Story Flow In Drams

Story Events are the most ―natural‖ units of story flow since they represent divisions of our perceived
daily activity. For an open ended, interactive, computer-mediated story form like Virtual Drama, it will
also be useful to take a bird‘s-eye view of overall patterns of story flow so that we can examine the
control developers have over the interaction between characters, travelers, and the environment.
Here are some very general flow patterns, which I‘ve labeled ―maze flow‖, ―ripple flow‖, and
―community flow‖.
Maze Story Flow. Totally predictable characters and pre-scripted events and interactions.
Ripple Story Flow. Character personalities (using automated characters) can be predicted, but individual
actions and events cannot. Control requires external triggers from travelers and environmental events.
Community Story Flow. Communities of characters exist independent of formal control. Control
consists of modeling probable events using cloned snapshots of story worlds and other meta-analysis
tools.
For each pattern, let‘s examine a few general topics (description, characters, travelers, places/objects,
major uses, and flow handling problems), followed by brief example-premises of the pattern as it would
be seen in certain types of stories (mystery, docudrama, education/occupation, action/adventure, and ―out
there‖).

Maze Story Flow Overview

Description. Maze story flow resembles a walk through one of those 19 th century garden mazes so
popular with tourists. While you‘re in the maze you seem to have an endless variety of choices. In effect
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you are moving from scene to scene – especially if there are quite a few other people also trying to find
their way out of the maze. From the vantage point of a helicopter, though, it‘s clear that the maze has a
very specific pattern and that you can predict with some certainty where someone is going to go next.
Maze flow assumes that all elements of the story experience – characters, settings, even dialogue, have
been prepared in advance. In that respect it‘s the same as most ―non-interactive‖ story forms, like the
novel. All but the simplest maze flow drams require extensive preparation, and stories allowing ―natural‖
interaction with travelers are very tricky indeed.
Characters. Dialogue, nonverbals and character interactions are all pre-scripted. To maintain the
appearance of spontaneity within an ongoing dram, this is likely to mean that a particular character
situation activates a set of rules which, in turn, calls up character behaviors from prepared
―action/event/dialogue‖ databases.
For example, a traveler asks a pirate whether he has found any treasure. Story control checks to see if the
traveler has already asked the pirate that particular question. If the answer is yes, the pirate asks why the
traveler keeps on asking that –– perhaps with the insinuation that the traveler is a spy of some sort.
If the answer is no, the pirate launches into one of several prepared tales about treasure. And, if the
traveler asks the question in a particularly rude way, the pirate may put the traveler in the brig. (I can see
this one being popular with the parents of pre-teens.)
You can see that once we get beyond the cartoon storyboard level of interaction with maze flow stories,
complexity increases dramatically. One way of handling this complexity is to prepare a ―life inventory‖
for each of the characters in the dram by using their individual ―life rules‖ (a sort of crude version of
personality) to pre-generate ―life script‖ responses to a large number of possible scenarios. Since this can
be done nano-time, an enormous amount of behavior can be generated pretty rapidly. The entire
collection of behaviors (or life scripts) for a single character is their ―life inventory‖.
Since in Maze flow stories we always know in advance which characters will be used, we can also create
a ―relationship inventory‖ for each character by generating a number of possible relationship histories
involving the other characters, as well as action/reaction triggers which determine how a character will
respond in various situations.
Of course we don‘t want to store all the life inventory and relationship behaviors themselves – just the
patterns, so the tricky bit becomes mapping the relationships and behaviors in such a way that a particular
situation triggers a set of responses from several characters simultaneously – perhaps in reaction to a
traveler comment or action.
For example, in the dram ―WalterMitty‖, travelers might be allowed to have any fantasy they want, with
the qualification that the same three ―major‖ characters –– perhaps representations of individuals in their
―real‖ lives –– appear in each fantasy, and that the fantasies be no longer than an hour in length. Since
most people have fairly predictable fantasy lives, life inventories and relationship inventories can be
generated for each character for, say, the top 100 fantasy situations.
Of course the behavior of travelers has to be tracked as well, by generating life scripts ―on-the-fly‖ to try
to match a particular pattern of behavior (therefore narrowing options) and by calling up stored patterns of
traveler behavior from other dram experiences.
Lengthy drams or those which involve multiple travelers can become enormously complex using maze
flow approaches, and developers will either be forced to devise various clever ways of limiting traveler
activities and options or move to automated characters and ripple flow stories.
Places/Objects. Since traveler behavior has to be controlled to reduce the complexity of maze flow, it
will be helpful to use spaces and objects to ―shape‖ traveler response. For example, to restrict
communication between travelers and characters, it might be useful to force them to move through a
particularly noisy area, or into a sandstorm.
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Although we tend to think of environments as being ―set‖, I can see the usefulness of preparing a number
of similar, story-appropriate environments to handle situations where travelers have to be manipulated.
For example, let‘s say that story control tracks the number of times travelers initiate communication with
characters. If that number is greater than a certain threshold amount in early scenes of a particular dram, it
might trigger a change in scene patterns to feature settings where communication becomes cumbersome
or inappropriate.
If the number of attempted traveler communications is unusually low, on the other hand, the dram might
want to engage travelers by placing them in crowded social spaces, such as a party, where it will be
difficult for them to avoid interaction altogether.
Major Uses. drams which are entirely ghosted –– watched from different vantage points without
interaction between travelers and characters –– are a natural use of maze flow. Pre-scripted story
environments also lend themselves to short term interactive experiences where characters and situations
are well-known. This makes maze flow drams particularly appropriate for stories which have educational
and occupational purposes or where role play, problem solving, or task repetition are more important than
depth of communication.
Major Problems. Whenever information is stored somewhere, it has to be retrieved, which means that all
sorts of strategies have to be developed to herd travelers into predictable patterns of behavior. Although
traveler actions, intentions, and reactions can probably be predicted with some accuracy, interactive
conversations are more difficult to simulate if story control has to continually pull information from
databases. Certainly ―likely‖ verbal responses can be placed in a character‘s short term ―memory‖ for
more rapid retrieval, but situations involving multiple characters and travelers require multitasking of a
very high order if interactions aren‘t to seem forced, wooden, or inappropriate.

Maze Story Flow Examples

Mystery. ―GhostTown‖. Travelers are brought into an old western mining ―ghost‖ town, with ramshackle
buildings and tunnels. (Perhaps a virtual version of an actual town.) They meet a number of characters
(―live‖ and ghost) who give them clues to various mysteries (murder, fraud, claim jumping, etc.) and to
the location of various treasures in the tunnels. Travelers rely on the story guide for a certain amount of
background information. They can only ask each character a set number of questions – which are
answered in various verbal and nonverbal ways. In the town, certain buildings and tunnels are decidedly
dangerous. Travelers go through the experience as a group, and are provided with communication devices
and ways of keeping track of clues. The dram allows for various add-on modules, which present new
mysteries and characters in the same basic setting.
Docudrama. ―Resort‖. The setting is a seaside resort. Characters are sampled directly on the lives of
people who actually live in a particular resort community – which assumes rapid input and manipulation
of large amounts of data. Travelers ―ghost‖ characters from various physical vantage points and get to
choose one character as an ―email buddy‖, but have no direct interaction with characters otherwise.
New segments of the dram are provided daily/weekly as well as traveler chat/gossip facilities. Perhaps
contest winners get to go to the actual resort and have their lives sampled as part of the storyline.
The great advantage of this dram is that it can continue indefinitely, and will actually reflect discussion
about / reaction to real world events.
Docudrama. ―CastleKeep‖. Travelers physically (not virtually) walk through a castle which has been
restored for tourists. The gear they wear allows them to switch between ―live‖ mode and ―drama‖ mode
so they don‘t fall into the moat straightaway. A special angel character takes sensory data from the
traveler and matches it with the actual environment to make sure they aren‘t getting into trouble.
Travelers move from room to room observing (ghosting) dramatic events which have taken place, and
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perhaps are allowed to switch from time period to time period. The technically interesting element here is
to provide different virtual points of view for real visitors in a real space viewing virtual characters and
objects. Additional dramatic interest can be added by asking visitors to solve a puzzle / mystery about
something that actually happened at the castle, or about some aspect of daily life. Your average pre-20th
century home offers more possibilities for mayhem than you might expect.
This sort of approach can be used with any number of historical sites and tourist attractions, and you
might want to note that some of the spadework has already been done in a live performance form,
―hyperdrama‖, which uses this room-to-room technique, as developed by Charles Deemer.
Educational/Occupational. ―Habitat‖. A dram series in which travelers are enlisted to help communities
in different times and places construct dwellings. The story guide helps to fill in culture and situation, and
a specialized builder/architect guide supervises actual construction. Travelers get to meet members of the
community on the worksite, and have the option to camp near the site for periods of time. Requires
manipulation of virtual tools, equipment, plans, and other objects. With advanced telerobotic capabilities,
actual dwellings could be constructed.
Storylines concern the actual construction, as well as the off-site lives of individuals on the crew, owners,
bankers, and so forth. (If you don‘t think a construction site itself is inherently dramatic, I‘d suggest going
on a Habitat for Humanity weekend sometime :) .)
Action/adventure. ―The Beagle‖. Travelers sail with Charles Darwin and a crew of naturalists and
adventurers on a series of land, sea, and underwater exploits in and around the Galapagos Islands and
other naturalist hot spots. Save a species from extinction! Some formalized interaction with the crew and
ability to make (or vote on) key decisions. The story guide is an ―Indiana Jones‖ type of character. This
dram would interconnect directly with botanical educational drams.
A specialized feature might be the ability to point to a plant or animal and have information immediately
available through voiceover or virtual ―information glasses‖ that an individual can put on during the
experience.
Out There. ―Trapped‖. Travelers are trapped in furnished homes and have to recreate the history of the
family that lived there to be able to acquire the clues to escape. Involves telephone and email
communication with characters, as well as the ability to ―dive‖ objects (taking a look at an object‘s past
history). The trick is that there are a number of story variations, so that the same house can have a number
of different ―house stories‖. Requires virtual hearing and touch.

Ripple Story Flow Overview

Description. Ripple story flow is a lot like dropping a number of stones of various sizes and shapes into a
still pond. You have a pretty good idea about the stones and their characteristics, and you can calculate
the ripples that each stone will make as it sinks into the pond. When the ripples start intersecting each
other, though, the results are fascinating to watch and very difficult to predict.
You can also think of ripple flow as being like formal theatrical improvisation, where characters are
selected by the audience and then a situation is acted out by the cast. Since cast members usually pre-
rehearse a number of possible situations, and are assigned particular types of roles to play, many aspects
of the resulting stories are functionally pre-scripted.
Characters. In ripple flow drams, characters are automated, which means that their personalities are pre-
defined in many ways, but their interactions and the resulting events are only controlled under emergency
conditions. This has the effect that any control over story flow has to be either embedded in the
personalities of the characters, or introduced externally.
For example, let‘s say that a traveler has chosen three well known fictional characters to ―star‖ in an
 Virtual Drama | 195

island adventure dram. The general personalities of the characters have been established in other story
forms and embellished during the automated character development process. Interaction among the
characters will be determined by their personalities, by their current physio/psych profiles and by the
situations made available by the locale. Developers can predict that ForrestGump will take suggestions
quite literally and will pursue introduced activities with singular focus and energy. BlancheDubois is
likely to be oppressed by many elements of the island environment, and will try to avoid any activity that
seems like work. She is also likely to be drawn to Tarzan, who is a bit out of his element, but knows how
to dress for heat.
Elaborate modeling of the likely effects of particular character interactions can be done in advance by the
development team, perhaps by taking clones of the Island story world and running through various
scenarios quick-time using the specified characters, but the point of ripple flow is to ―let it happen‖, so
only exceptionally boring or dangerous events will need to be noted using this sort of process.
Travelers. Within a Ripple flow dram, travelers are the true wildcard characters, and they will need to be
channeled into ―productive‖ directions. It will help to have fairly sophisticated psych profiles for travelers
as well as their patterns of activity in other, similar drams, but it is most likely that they will have to be
manipulated by using secondary characters and environmental events. In flowing through the story, they
will find that automated characters are almost as difficult to deal with as real people. Many travelers will
find this refreshing. Others, especially game or puzzle players, are likely to be frustrated and may need to
be led into the experience by starting with maze flow versions/levels of the story. ―The King had me put
in chains just because I called him a [bleep]. What gives?‖
Places/Objects. Things can happen very rapidly in ripple flow drams, and since characters are pretty
much on their own, it will be important to give them a worldview (ala the film ―The Truman Show‖,
where the central character‘s entire life was the subject of a reality TV program) that is limited to certain
locations – otherwise they could decide to take a trip to Cairo, or to the moon.
The advantage of having characters with fully established personalities but alterable language,
occupation, etc. is that they can be given a budget and can go house, clothing, and thing shopping by
themselves. In situations where automated characters are developed by ―growing‖ them in natural
communities (in nanotime), they can even build their own dwellings, cultivate gardens and crops, herd
animals, and do all of those things we think of as representing permanence.
If developers provide a stockpile of already developed settings, travelers can also be allowed to choose
their own scenario settings. For example, a traveler might find it interesting to place Don Quixote,
Popeye, and an 18th Century warlord into a New York City apartment building.
It goes without saying that the sale of low cost virtual add-ons such as furnishings could be quite
lucrative, as can one-of-a-kind creations by designers who primarily work in virtual media.
Major Uses. Ripple flow allows the duration of dram scenarios to be greatly extended, since automated
characters don‘t have to be explicitly controlled, and dialogue and situations don‘t have to be pre-scripted.
It also permits true interaction between characters and travelers, which allows for improvisation.
Improvisation in turn means that characters can be mixed and matched ―on the fly‖, and that the number
of "major‖ characters can be substantially increased, so that, say, a character who appears to be ―minor‖
can become a major character just by driving his hovercraft through that alligator-rich swamp.
Ripple flow stories start to bring us back to the roots of storytelling, the dinner table story –– where
storytellers pop back and forth between characters, and where participants in the storytelling process can
change the story based on the reaction of the story visitor. For example, if characters are aware of the
presence of travelers in a dram, characters themselves can respond to inattentive travelers. ―Yo! You
listenin‘ to me, or what?!‖
Major Problems. Automated characters require established techniques for creating personality structures,
individualization of verbal, nonverbal, and social patterns, and the creation of a worldview for each
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character. All of this information has to be instantly available. That sort of effort requires extensive
interdisciplinary research and development. And, of course, it is most effective for travelers to interact
with automated characters directly, using speech and nonverbals, so speech recognition and analysis need
to be quite sophisticated.

Ripple Story Flow Examples

Mystery. ―MasterSleuth‖. Would-be detective travelers get to solve mysteries that are similar to famous
real and fictional cases. They interview key witnesses, examine evidence, and record observations. For
example, a series of cases might be set in Sherlock Holmes‘ London. Of course, only investigative
techniques from a particular period can be used. Levels of expertise can be introduced in the series so that
in advanced scenarios witnesses will be quite lifelike – meaning erratic, forgetful, unhelpful, or downright
hostile.
Docudrama. ―PartyTown‖. Set in a group of dance clubs, bars, restaurants, and apartment complexes,
this dram features a large cast of characters. Travelers become regulars at the clubs – dancing, imbibing,
discussing the life of the community, and, I‘d imagine, making liaisons. PartyTown can be linked with
therapeutic modules for social skills, sex skills, party animal rehab.
Educational/Occupational. ―YesterdayHouse‖. This dram series focuses on one of the most difficult
aspects of history – understanding the lives and basic assumptions of different cultures. Travelers choose
several ―ordinary‖ characters from different periods of history. The characters subsequently become part
of a single household which includes the travelers. The emphasis here is on personality, daily life, and the
requirements of particular cultures. Travelers and characters get to explain their own culture. Characters
are able to open a ―story window‖ to show their own daily lives. This can tie-in to drams which allow
travelers to live in a culture for a period of time. For cultures for which we have scant reliable
information, approaches like ―YesterdayHouse‖ may be the most effective.
Action/adventure. ―DropZone‖. Travelers are dropped into a remote location with a small group of
characters and a few supplies and have to find their way back to civilization. Very physical. Requires
apparatus for climbing, swimming, trekking through difficult terrain. Travelers communicate fully with
characters and with other travelers. Links to survival skill drams. (In fact, you might have to pass
particular survival skill dram adventures just to be allowed to participate in Drop Zone.)
Out There. ―TheBenzwie‖. Entrance to the dram is a peculiar curio shop presided over by a grizzled
time/space traveler character named ―The Benzwie‖. Travelers choose a curio and are transported into an
entirely different world, which is created on the fly based on pre-determined rule structures. Travelers
never know what they are going to be getting into, or whether they will actually be able to communicate
with inhabitants of these worlds. They function as reporters, relaying descriptions of the world to the rest
of the Benzwie community. Requires rapid and sophisticated space and character prototyping techniques.
This dram structure can also be used to explore the limits of understanding and belief related to
extraterrestrial worlds.
Out There. ―Toon Town‖. Travelers choose well known cartoon characters, settings, and situations and
let them play it out. Situations can be changed on-the-go by the traveler, so that characters are always
reacting to something. Other participants can vote on the best finished product – so that travelers become
animators without having to draw a line.
This assumes fairly thorough automated character definition, which would seem to be easier for cartoon
characters. The problem is that these characters are copyrighted, with vested interest in branding. For
example, if we want to put HomerSimpson (of the U.S. TV Series ―The Simpsons‖) into a blimp for a sail
around the world, we know that he will make a mess of things, but those holding copyright on the
character are likely to want to establish guidelines for specific behaviors. (At the moment I can‘t think of
anything that would be inappropriate for HomerSimpson, but you get the idea.)
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Community Story Flow Overview

Description. Community story flow is a constantly changing pattern – thousands of intersecting story
ripples that have come from ―somewhere‖. As in the life of a non-virtual community, we don‘t have all
that much control over the these patterns, but feel that we need to impose some sort of order on them – or
at least have some sort of input.
Community flow stories are developed using communities of independent virtual characters, who live
their own lives with a minimum of intervention from ―reals‖. This means that, in effect, travelers are
either visiting these communities as one would visit a vacation spot or the home of a relative, or ―inhabit‖
the body of a character who lives permanently in the community.
Since we don‘t want to interrupt the lives of these independent characters by having travelers constantly
running in and out, it is most likely that we will clone or extensively sample an independent story world
to create versions used for community flow drams. The demigods of development can view the ongoing
life of a particular independent virtual community and decide which elements would be best to sample,
and how to poke, prod, and guide travelers through interesting bits of those samples.
Characters. Community flow characters are, for the most part, virtual people, with full lives, personal
histories and belief systems developed over time. They live out their lives – perhaps many times –
without understanding (one hopes) that they are part of a story world. (Hmmm. Now just suppose that we
are virtual people living in a community that resides inside ....).
When virtual communities are cloned to be used for Virtual Drama, developers are also likely to want to
introduce some automated characters who are a bit easier to control and who will serve as guides and
―nudge‖ characters to influence story flow in particular ways.
Travelers. There will be different ways to involve travelers in the life of a community. Some travelers
will have guide maps and will drop in from place to place ―ghosting‖ events that they find interesting, or
will respond to published tips about ―very‖ interesting behavior. Other travelers may have doubles who
live full time in the community. When travelers aren‘t present, these doubles continue to live in the
community – which means that travelers who are popping in for a visit will have to be carefully briefed.
―I said what to Snow White?!‖
Places/Objects. As you might expect, places and objects in community flow drams are created,
renovated, and demolished just as they would be in the real world. The great advantage of communities
that have evolved in this way is that places and objects will tend to reflect the actual idiosyncratic life of
the community, and not just some design team‘s notion of what the community ―should‖ look like. This
will be especially useful in recreating places for which little reliable description of space exists – for
example, town life in the middle ages. Archaeological hints about the life of such communities can be
placed like pieces in a largely empty jigsaw, with community builders themselves filling in the missing
bits.
Major Uses. Aside from likely research interest in observing the development of living, breathing
communities, community flow drams can be used to provide characters, events, and sampling patterns for
other types of drams, as well as various sorts of educational and occupational experiences. Then of
course, there are always those folks who already spend countless hours re-living famous historical events,
or living in fantasy worlds. This will take their involvement up a notch.
Major Problems. Creating a living community in a computer mediated environment is a daunting task if
for no other reason than getting it right requires the cooperation of researchers from virtually every human
discipline. Another particularly tricky problem is the involvement of a large number of travelers in the life
of a community. Just watching wouldn‘t be a problem. The cloning and sampling of communities I
mentioned above is only part of the answer.
Then we have the fear of obsessive involvement in such endlessly stimulating scenarios– like a continual
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soap opera. Why be involved in the real world when you can actually live in a fantasy world? I do think
that safeguards need to be built into these sorts of experiences to prevent obsessive/ compulsive/
sociopathic abuse, but I also think they can help satisfy the ―busybody gene‖ many of us seem to possess.
If years of eavesdropping on private conversations on commuter trains is any indication, more people get
into trouble by getting too involved in the lives of their non-virtual neighbors than are harmed by
absorbing daily TV ―soaps‖. ―And then he put the garbage out on the right side of the driveway. Not the
left side, like everyone else. So I walked right out there and ...‖

Community Story Flow Examples

Mystery. ―KellermanVillage‖. A community consisting of virtual people based on the novels of

best-selling mystery writing couple Faye and Jonathan Kellerman –– whose work tends to take
place in and around the same upscale Santa Barbara-ish California locale. This is a situation
where the authors or their expert representatives would be consulted in the development and
sampling of characters and situations. The community is ―grown‖ around events in the existing
novels, with histories and ancillary events and characters extrapolated or sampled from similar
real communities.
Travelers could visit cloned segments of the story world, becoming peripheral characters or
hitching/surfing/diving major characters. A separate version of the world might allow travelers to
solve new mysteries generated from within the ongoing community.
Docudrama. ―Tribeca‖. Using sampled footage and life stories, a community living in the lower
part of Manhattan is created and then ―liberated‖. Travelers use cloned versions of the world
which are regularly updated with physical events such as water main breaks, restaurant openings,
and so forth. The level of traveler participation can range from occasional ghost to full time
occupant –– with a character double taking the traveler‘s place in the community most of the
time. It will be important to set the character/traveler ratio high enough so that travelers don‘t feel
they‘re just in a 3D chat group.
Educational/Occupational. ―HabitForHumanity‖. Travelers become part of a construction crew
designing and building houses for a mythical community. After being part of a small work crew
for a certain number of hours, travelers get to choose a trade. If they want (and if appropriate
immersion gear I available) they can move from apprentice to journeyman.
―Habitat‖ would be an actual time dram, so that projects would move forward –– with all the
inherent drama of just-in-time construction schedules –– with or without travelers acting as crew.
Some travelers might opt for weekend / full-week versions of the dram, perhaps mixing dram
labor with actual supervised construction.
Action/adventure. ―VoyageOfDiscovery‖. This dram puts travelers on board various types of
vessels from the beginning of human exploration. For those who want to sail on well-known
voyages, ships logs and historical revisions can provide a framework. Others can sail on wholly
fictional voyages, living various versions of the seafaring life and visiting exotic ports-of-call.
Clearly this has tie-ins with drams used for historical re-creation, so that communities of sailors,
townspeople can be grown and cloned to interact with travelers. Want to sail on the Pequod?
With Darwin to Galapagos? Want to visit a 16th Century sailor‘s tavern? Have a longing to be
shanghaied?
Out There. ―CultureSwap‖. Become part of a world where the entire social structure and cultural
norms change on a regular basis, although the actual people don‘t –– so they have to learn to
make adjustments. The dram might require that travelers have a virtual double present in the
world at all times so that developments would be ―pure‖.
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Out There. ―OurBabylon‖. A world that is used as a meeting zone for sentient species from all
over the galaxy. Travelers can train to become other species. The educational piece here is
extrapolation of the lives of, say, silicon-based life forms, or species with almost unimaginable
differences. (Note that science fiction writers normally create worlds/species to
exemplify/exaggerate human characteristics –– allowing them to make social and psychological
points about our own species –– rather than actually speculating about the exobiology of
intelligent life forms, which would require enormous mindset shifts on the part of story visitors.)

Flow Wrap-Up

Flow is a relationship which is important to all story forms, but is crucial in Virtual Drama, where the
expectations and demands of travelers will require constant monitoring and adjustment of both physical
and story environments.
Especially important will be the incorporation of explicit mechanisms to monitor flow –– from the point
where potential travelers first hear about a story experience to the time when they are passing on
recommendations to others.
Although flow measurement will need to take place in the story itself, the personalized face of flow is
likely to reside with the story/sales guides, representing the dram, and with the dram assistant,
representing the traveler.
While drams offer enormous opportunities to provide experiences that can involve, inform, and even
transform participants, they also offer the potential for misery, disgust, danger, and physical injury.
Wise developers will keep their eyes on the stream.

And, speaking of developers ...

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WHY DEVELOP VIRTUAL DRAMA?

Now that we've explored some of the possible characters, places, and flows of Virtual Drama, the
question remains: why would someone want to get involved in creating a story form that 1) doesn't exist;
2) requires extensive interdisciplinary research; 3) could be very, very expensive.
You're a multimedia developer or a venture capitalist or a film producer or a virtual reality widget maker
looking for new and different projects. You think about this whole idea of immersive, interactive drama.
Sounds interesting. Sounds complicated. Sounds expensive. Do you want to get involved in a process that
could take years to bring products to market? The whole interactive drama area isn't exactly film and isn't
exactly computer gaming. What is it exactly? And you know very well about the 3D film and Artificial
Intelligence booms and busts. Why would anyone want to risk money on this? What are some of the
financial, technological, artistic, and humanistic (yes, humanistic) factors that dram developers are likely
to consider? Can Virtual Drama help in the grand unification of the arts, sciences, and humanities?

Financial Factors

Any entrepreneur who thinks about an environment as fully immersive as, say, the Star Trek "holodeck" –
– where people have fully believable adventures in a limited holograpic space, can immediately come up
with thousands of ways it could profitably be used. Since we don't have holodecks lying about waiting to
be exploited (as far as I know), the question becomes why anyone would want to get involved in early
phases of development. The short answer is: the potential profitability is simply enormous. "Become
Peter Pan and Tinkerbelle in the Bahamas for the weekend!‖ Although creating viable products will
certainly require significant investment, many of the cross-marketing strategies and techniques to deliver
those products have already been worked out in the film, theme park and computer game industries.

Financial Rewards

The number of potential products and services is mind numbing, especially if travelers (the audience) can
help to create virtual characters and worlds, can pre-determine who they going to interact with (and where
and when), and can purchase "real" products that they've experienced during virtual role-play. "I'd like
that dress Samantha wore in the jungle– in a size 4, please, and in time for dinner tonight."
- Film conglomerates have been very successful at taking virtual characters (animations) and
spinning off products and services. The idea of entire communities of virtual characters who live in
their own worlds and can communicate one-on-one with audience members is enough to make
even the most jaded cross-marketeer flush with anticipation.
- One of the key selling points of virtual characters is that they can be wholly owned by the
developer. A major draw of live stars is that they can be followed, fanned, tabloided, and almost
touched. Largely independent virtual characters can combine both of these sets of characteristics.
In fact, the more "independent" they are, the more interesting they are likely to be to the public. A
relationship between a virtual actor and a live star? It‘s possible.
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- The development of complex virtual characters and the techniques necessary for people to
interact with them is likely to have spin-offs in education, psychology, medicine, virtual work,
virtual sports–you name it!
- If virtual characters, spaces, places, and events are largely interchangeable from world to world,
audiences are much more likely to be able to customize their experiences "I'd like to be with The
Emperor Nero, Indiana Jones, and a big tarantula in a hot tub on top of Mt. Everest." A satisfied,
involved, customer stays a customer.
- The do-it-yourself characters/places/objects/events market could be substantial–something
between dolls-for-all ages and home-improvement. "Would you like a balcony to go with your
character's new virtual condo?"

Financial Problems

Overblown Expectations. The Star Trek holodeck may have stirred the creative imagination of millions,
but it also sets a standard for immersive experience that isn't likely to be met until just-in-time
nanotechnology or direct cortical activation techniques are developed. The more hype and vaporware that
come out of virtual character land, the more difficult it will be to convince audiences and venture
capitalists.
Mis-Targeted Development. Virtual Drama isn't exactly film, isn't "quite" interactive theater, and
certainly isn't a standard computer game–and yet the greatest push for development of the form is likely
to come from the multimedia/game industries. Some people may want to walk around in pretty worlds
and kill the inhabitants, but most others–including the all important female market–are likely to view such
products as "toys for teenage boys". Since sophisticated, non-violent interactive environments tend to be
difficult (=costly) to produce, the temptation to produce killing fields instead of picnic groves will be
strong.
Dram Wars. There is considerable discussion among 3D world builders about the establishment of
standards for virtual characters and spaces. If separate sets of standards are developed for different
product lines, it means that characters, props and objects won't be interchangeable. That might be a good
short term strategy for a company with a hot product, but it's a disastrous way to try to grow an industry.
Mr. and Mrs. X want to be Antony and Cleopatra at a spa in Switzerland.
Too Too Techie. Computer users today put up with a lot of ... well.... crap. Some software isn't too
difficult to learn–if you already know some of the rules –– but more sophisticated packages, which let you
do more interesting things, are often outrageously complex. It's as though every make of automobile had
its own, unique operating controls (dozens of them) that you had to relearn every time a new model of car
came out.
Part of the justification that software manufacturers use is that buyers are almost always technically
sophisticated, want lots of control, and don't mind a little "pain" with their product. Go figure. The largest
potential dram market is the movie-going, TV watching public. They just won't stand for it.
Speechless in Paradise. Fully immersive drams require verbal and nonverbal interaction between
travelers and characters. At first they may have to be menu-drive, hand-signaled or partly lip-read, but
complete voice and body-language recognition are crucial to normal communication. Add to this
simultaneous language translation and translation of traveler verbal/ non-verbal communication into
character-appropriate form (―simchar‖), and you have ―a bit of a challenge‖.
Data Storage Limits. Complex virtual communities will require massive amounts of data storage
capacity–both near the user and somewhere "else"–to display and control virtual worlds and characters.
Clever ways will need to be developed to transcend data storage limitations (such as ‗distributed
intelligent image' approaches), or drams are likely to remain interesting 3D cartoons.
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The time seems to be ripe for immersive entertainment. Audiences are restless, the necessary technologies
are lumbering into existence, ―reality‖ programming is the rage on TV, and the conceptual/marketing way
has been prepared by media conglomerates and science fiction writers. Potential financial rewards are
enormous. The question is: are developers willing to look at "the big picture" long enough to build a self-
perpetuating, job-rich industry?

Technological Factors

Financial incentives will play a crucial role in motivating the development of the technologies necessary
for fully immersive, interactive Virtual Dramas, but as anyone knows who has spent more than fifteen
minutes around research wizards, dollars aren't a sufficient motivation. Many of these folks are driven by
dreams, visions, impossible problems and universal goals. They want to make a difference.
Virtual Drama could help them do just that.

Tech Rewards

Moonshot in a Living Room. So many interrelated technologies are required to produce sophisticated
drams –– with independent characters and believable experiences –– that the effort to create Virtual
Drama resembles an Apollo Program for computer-mediated communication. If you think about it,
creating communities filled with virtual characters who live their own lives may be even more
challenging than a moon shot, simply because we humans have been tinkering with machines for
centuries, but we've only recently started to examine our own behavior in any detail. In a way it means
creating (or re-creating) life –– not in a test tube, but in millions of living rooms and dram centers.
A New, Enabling Role for Computers. Virtual Drama also represents a highly visible and largely
positive new role for the computer. Until recently, most people's conscious experience with computers
was limited to word processors, spreadsheets, and databases (all complicated and pretty boring),
automation (with fears of job loss firmly attached) and computer games (violent pre-teen male ritual). The
development of the Internet has made computers a bit more "approachable", but only to a small,
privileged fraction of the world community. So far, computers have acted primarily as a silent partner and
except for their role in communications and scientific research, are seen by many as a de-humanizing
force. The role of the computer in automation and the subsequent loss of jobs is acutely felt by people in
the computer industry–who are often the first ones to be de–jobbed.
A Testing Ground for Advanced Computer Technologies. Because full development of Virtual Drama
requires instantaneous communication between people and computer-generated characters who interact
within detailed 3D settings for periods of time ranging from minutes to months and over distances
spanning the globe, a large number of computer disciplines–from cognitive science to voice recognition
to tactile imaging–will have to make great leaps to make it at all possible.
The process of creating Virtual Drama can provide an excellent testing ground for these various
technologies–with a full range of research-through-product testing opportunities.
The 21st Century. There is an excitement that surrounds the birth of a new century. It is a time for
renewal, rebirth, and the laying of great plans and thoughts. It seems to me that the 21st century, with all
of its looming divisions and conflicts, offers the hope and the very real possibility of creating one world,
one people. A medium that helps an international community communicate, play, and work together can
be one small step toward that unity.
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Tech Problems

Now, Play Together Kids. Virtual Drama requires a great deal of cross-fertilization across disciplines.
This particular marriage of art and technology is very new–and squabbles erupt every day. The ability to
manage wildly divergent teams of scientists, technologists, artists, and people-people, will be a test that
not all companies/institutions will be able to pass.
Lack of Interoperability. The drive to maximize short-term profits by keeping exclusive control over
characters, scenarios, or storylines could have a chilling effect on the industry.
Just imagine BarbieDoll that can only live in BarbieWorld and can't be picked up and put into
RangerBill's tree house and you'll see what we're up against.
Techie in a Teacup. Although "big picture" thinkers exist aplenty in the media technology industries, on
corporate tech-campuses, and in venture capital conference rooms, technical specialties tend to build their
own languages, techniques, cultures, and hierarchies. Transcending those boundaries could prove more
difficult than actually transporting someone to the 15th century.

Artistic Factors

In a way, Virtual Drama represents the goal of storytellers throughout the centuries –– to magically
transport the listener/ viewer/ reader (the ―story visitor‖) to a place where the story has become so real
that the audience will carry it in their memories as an actual experience. It also represents the desire of
audiences to fully participate in stories the way they do in dreams –– but with a bit more control. Up until
now this "living-the-dream" has only been possible for the very rich, the very deluded, or the very young.
Of course there are those who believe that modern storytelling forms (TV, film) have so overwhelmed
and so impoverished the imagination of audiences that a new, multi-sensory, 3D form represents the final
nail in the coffin of individual creativity. My own vision of Virtual Drama is so interactive and permits
such unparalleled creative license for the audience (travelers) to make up their own stories, that I see it
enabling a great burst of imagination from a much larger number of people. (Think of the current creative
explosion permitted by relatively inexpensive digital drameo cameras and editors.) A less interactive form
–– where the audience can only observe (or "ghost") stories –– could well have the effect that critics fear.

Current Artistic Trends

Rapid Growth of Inter-Art/Interactive Forms. The artistic imagination has always embraced new
technologies. Let's not forget that gunpowder started its life as pretty nighttime displays. But in the 21st
century, the various art forms themselves have begun to merge as artists find themselves wanting to
explore more and more of the human puzzle.
Performance forms that act out stories have also begun to include the audience –– partly because
audiences are looking for something new, partly because improvisation is a popular form, and partly
because current writers and directors are much more comfortable with the "systems" approaches
necessary to create successful audience-involvement experiences. Tongue-twister storytelling forms like
"interactive multimedia" and "participatory mystery dinner theater" have become very popular in the U.S.
–– although not quite so popular as the audience-involvement theatrical form known as professional
wrestling. And, let‘s not forget Reality TV.
Tattoos Are Not Enough. Each generation of artists and writers needs to establish its own special
territories. Since the arts have memories that extend for centuries, establishing a unique identity can take
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some doing –– which is one reason new technologies are pounced on so quickly by coming-of-age artists.
To a generation of artists comfortable with computers, chat rooms and virtual role-play, forms like Virtual
Drama can offer the tools to help shape that identity.
Tonight Only–On Our Website. The growth of the Internet — with personal stories, art, photographs,
poems, plays, music, and film displayed to the world, often by people who would be snubbed by
publishers, galleries and producers –– offers an interesting dilemma. Artists like to talk about freedom of
expression in the abstract, but the highly competitive process by which art/ writing/ dance/ media/ theater/
film are currently produced involves a guild/ patron system that hasn't changed much since the Middle
Ages, even in countries where the government provides significant support. Advanced forms of Virtual
Drama, which would allow people to create their own characters, events, or even communities –– without
years of apprenticeship –– could free millions of people to "tell their own stories" and create their own
worlds.
If you believe, as I do, that every person in the world is biologically designed to have unique skills/
abilities and to tell a unique story –– not necessarily about their own lives –– and that the sharing of those
unique abilities and stories is somehow crucial to putting together the great puzzle of world unity, then the
possible democratization of public storytelling is a truly wonderful process.

Artistic Rewards

Control. A major complaint of writers, directors, and producers of acted-out stories is that they find it
extremely difficult to express their own vision through layers and layers of collaboration. Translation:
appropriate talent, time, and money are in short supply.
While it is true that performers and directors sometimes help to "transform" a work into something more
interesting than its creator originally envisioned, and that some director-creators rely heavily upon
improvisation as a tool, in general the cumbersome processes by which acted-out storytelling forms are
produced tend to dilute or divert the original vision of the storyteller. As a case in point, just take a look at
the original main "message" of a classic novel and then look at film versions of the same novel. Chances
are that the message itself –– not to mention characters and the storyline –– has been altered to suit the
sensibilities of director/ producers/ actors/ shareholders, and someone‘s cousin who visited just before a
story meeting.
Computer-mediated forms like Virtual Drama, once put in place, could give creators unprecedented
control over the final product.
Multi-Form Approaches. One major advantage of a computer-mediated, interactive performance form
like Virtual Drama is that techniques from a wide variety of storytelling forms can be "borrowed". Since
the traveler often will have one or more guides, narrative can be used. The traveler might be able to hear a
character's thoughts–so introspective stream of consciousness is possible. The traveler can rapidly hop
from place to place and from time to time –– an ability which helps give novels and films their sense of
scope and immediacy. And, of course, there will arise techniques peculiar to the Virtual Drama form.
Increase in Scope. The canvas available to acted-out storytelling has always been limited by many
factors, not the least of which is the audience's ability to "sit still" through performances on stage or
screen that are longer than it takes to digest dinner. Contrast this with the power of the novel –– which
can be experienced one piece at a time, but can have hundreds of scenes that take the reader through
centuries or through the minute details of a single day. Virtual Drama will be more like the novel in the
sense that travelers will be able to roam through the personal architecture of a world's characters. A dram
will be able to go much further than the novel in opening the traveler to the actual experience of a
character‘s life.
Involving the Audience. Those improvisation-oriented creators who would really like to see how
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audiences interact with their characters have so far been pretty much limited to the "Interactive Theater"
form. Virtual Drama provides these creators with a new and exciting home.
Global Audiences. One thing the growth of the Internet (and the emergence of English as a universal
language) has accomplished is to allow creators to present their stories directly to a global audience at
modest expense. Although early hi-tech versions of Virtual Drama are likely to require expensive
equipment, lower-tech forms will have no such restrictions, and will use networks like the Internet to
reach a vast potential audience.

Artistic Problems

High Equipment Expense Artificially Maintained. Computer-mediated art forms require specialized
hardware and software. If prices of those items are kept relatively high (perhaps artificially so) only a
select few will get to create with them –– pretty much the situation in the feature film industry up until the
development of consumer digital drameo equipment. If current storytelling guilds successfully convince
equipment/ software developers that there is no mass market for Virtual Drama products, the cost of
making drams will remain high and a large number of potential storytellers will be "locked out" of the
process.
Technophobia. Although an entire generation of storytellers comfortable with computer-based
communication is coming online, more mature story creators –– who may have the life/ organizational/
political experience to create sophisticated Virtual Dramas –– may find themselves "locked out" by their
own discomfort with computer processes. Providing guides/translators to help these master storytellers
make the transition to Virtual Drama could be an important factor in its success.
The 30 Second Vision. In one of those peculiar ironies of cultural history, novelists and psychologists
may be better prepared "mentally" to tackle wide scale performance forms like Virtual Drama than most
playwrights, screenwriters, or film/TV/theater directors. I say this because the entire emphasis in current
performance forms is on saying as much as possible in as short a time as possible with the fewest
characters and at the least expense. These "haiku story forms" often produce wonderful results, but they
also create a mental-model which strives for brevity, simplicity, and action. Virtual Drama, on the other
hand, is the ultimate long-form story medium.
Guild Fears. Writers, directors and producers of existing performance forms (not to mention actors) may
see forms like Virtual Drama –– which look toward independent characters and audience driven events ––
as a threat to their livelihood. Although exactly the opposite is likely to be the case these attitudes are
likely to develop.

Humanistic Factors

It may seem odd at first to talk about "humanistic incentives" for a computer-generated storytelling form,
but if you substitute the phrase "role-play" for the word "storytelling", I think you'll see how Virtual
Drama "the entertainment form" can be of use in fields like history, psychology, education, political
science, and so on. Although I‘ll deal with this in more detail in Volume II, here's a small sample of
humanistic rewards and problems.

Humanistic Rewards

A Research Lab for the Humanities. To be able to build independent virtual characters and
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communities we have to have models of how people and social groups operate. To put someone into 17th
century China you need to have a detailed worldview of that time and place. Virtual Drama needs
psychology, sociology, history, linguistics and all the rest of the humanities to be able to give travelers
interesting, "authentic" experiences. Along the way, the dram development process can act as an
unprecedented laboratory for testing different theories of human behavior and historical processes,
including the birth and development of cultures, societies, and languages.
Role-Play in Therapy and Other Forms of Socialization. Two important elements in the
psychotherapeutic process are recognition and practice: the person/family in therapy must come to truly
recognize that something specific needs to be changed in their lives and then they must practice ways to
accomplish those changes. drameotape and other forms of feedback have been used over the years to help
the recognition process, and "homework assignments", role-play, and other "acting" procedures have been
used for practice. Since characters and situations aplenty will be used in Virtual Drama, why not produce
therapeutic offshoots–where the client goes into a role-play environment (virtually indistinguishable from
a normal dram) and is either observed, or practices behavior changes. Since these activities can be done
privately, can be "fun", can be repeated over and over (with clients able to privately view their own
behavior), and can include virtual or real therapists at every stage, the amount of help that can be provided
can be vastly expanded.
The Concept of Community. In an era where communities West and East face enormous social
problems, the need for successful intervention strategies has never been greater. So far interventions have
been tested the hard way–in actual communities. Using dram communities filled with believable,
independent virtual characters, social problems and interventions can be modeled and tested before they
have to go into the field.
You're Not the Mona Lisa! It doesn't take much imagination to see how Virtual Drama can be useful in
education. Students can participate in adventures that take them from the paleolithic Transvaal to the
multinational boardroom. Most important, I think, will be offering students the option to develop one-on-
one relationships with virtual mentors and guides who can lead them on adventures through time and
space, and who can introduce them to poets and chemists and philosophers who will talk with them and
show them the world through eyes that have very special perspectives.

Humanistic Problems

Concerns about Control and Automation. From the point of view of the psychologist, sociologist, or
educator, computer-mediated processes haven't even begun to balance social usefulness with the social-
disruption and joblessness they have helped to create. And so when someone says "here is this neat
performance form that will allow you to study people's behavior," it's natural for them to wonder "whose
model of behavior will we be using and who will see the results‖. They have a good point. Processes so
powerful that they put people directly into another world have to be approached carefully, and as openly
as possible.
Specialization in the Humanities. Decreases in funding for the Humanities in general has promoted an
atmosphere where disciplines are fighting with each other over resources in universities and in the
lobbying halls of legislatures. Although I personally believe that involvement in dram research efforts
could help to increase funding sources (and help to "legitimatize" some fields in the eyes of
technologists), the idea of a "computer therapist" isn't likely to bring joy to the heart of a psychologist
trying to make ends meet.

The Grand Unification Industry

As human genome research and global Internet chat rooms make it more and more difficult for us to think
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of ourselves as radically different from our neighbors on condo-earth, the time seems ripe for the various
academic disciplines in the arts, sciences, and humanities to come together to give us a much more
thorough explanation of the process of being human.
There are numerous financial, political, social, and religious factors –– not to mention academic
territoriality –– which have prevented us from doing this thus far, and it seems to me that the various
disciplines need to be lured toward some intriguing goal.
Since full implementation of Virtual Drama requires some form of ―grand unification‖ of the disciplines,
and since its products are likely to be ―sexy‖, financially lucrative, educational, scientifically rigorous,
practical, and entertaining, it seems to me to be a good candidate for the job.
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VOLUME ONE WRAP-UP

The Notes So Far

Definitions
Virtual Drama is a storytelling form in which the audience members are immersed in three dimensional,
sensorily plausible, computer-generated or mediated worlds where they are able to communicate with
characters and other travelers, alter events, and physically interact with characters, places, spaces, and
objects. I refer to Virtual Drama stories as ―drams‖ and the audience members as ―travelers‖.
There are a number of financial, technological, artistic and humanistic reasons for creating Virtual Drama,
and it could be used as a product-based focus for integration of the arts, sciences and humanities.
Virtual Drama can also be used as part of a number of daily activities and occupations –– briefly depicted
in the story-example ―A Day in the Life of the Smith Family‖.

Characters
As the technology improves, virtual characters will progress through eight stages of independence, from
pre-scripted to automated, to largely independent. Specialized characters like Angels (for safety), dram
Assistants (to help select drams), and Story Guides (introducing travelers to the story world) will help
make the dram experience a bit more user friendly.

Places / Spaces
Until nanotechnology or direct cortical implants allow for ―just-in-time‖ real story environments,
developers will need to provide spaces and objects that appear to serve the dramatic interests of the story
and be realistic at the same time. To accomplish this, spaces and objects will need to both serve the
interests of storytelling and be intelligent –– able to communicate with each other, with story control, and
with characters. Equipment will need to serve story needs and keep travelers safe and more-or-less in
control.

Flow
"Story Flow" is the dynamic relationship between story visitors and the storyworld. It includes all those
events which influence a story visitor‘s reactions to a story –– before, during, and after the story
experience.
Each story form has its own flow requirements. Virtual Drama, which requires that the traveler be able to
live in the story world, needs to be able to track, control, and remember flow from the point where the
traveler chooses a dram, through immersion and the story experience itself, and back out into the non-
virtual world.
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Infrastructure Development Opportunities

To move Virtual Drama from being a series of product enhancements to a full- fledged industry, planning
and co-ordination of goals, relationships, and standards will be crucial. From my perspective, this will
include: open standards, a limited-conflict model of story development, infrastructure working groups,
and support for wide-ranging interdisciplinary research. Each of these areas have ongoing profit potential
through development of intermediary products and processes.

Open Standards
Without the ability to move characters, spaces and objects from world to world, Virtual Drama becomes
like a summer rental condominium that you have to share with people you don‘t know and where you
aren‘t allowed to bring your own friends, furniture, possessions, and food. Open standards for
storyworlds, as in other open standards environments, allows for sale of ―enhanced‖ elements –– for
example that hot tub with tiles designed by the virtual Salvador Dali –– but opens re-use and re-
development of story environments, structures, objects and ―basic‖ characters to anyone.
Equally important is the development of ―DISPOD‖ (Digital Spaces Places and Objects Database), where
the form and function of most common objects and structures would be made available to be tested,
refined, and used by thousands of researchers, developers, and hobbyists.
Open standards are also important for the parts and functions of the human body, and the bodies of other
species. Although the working virtual model of the human Reticular Activation System might well remain
proprietary, it would be highly counterproductive for someone to claim exclusive rights to, say, the
movement of the human eye and eyelids.
If it seems preposterous to you that someone would try to patent or copyright the function of a moving
ball, or a toilet, or bits of the human body, just take a look a few recent cases in intellectual property law.

A Limited-Conflict Model of Story Development

Oral Tradition Stories have conflict resolution as one of their main functions, and since all other story
forms are pretty much derived from them, problem and conflict situations have tended to be prominent in
the telling of stories. For acted-out stories this conflict orientation was codified by the Greek philosopher
Aristotle, who presented a conflict-based analysis of the competition-winning plays of the great Athenian
dramatists. Although I suspect that Aristotle never meant his work to apply to anything other than that
particular set of competitions, the ―rules‖ he espoused have come to dominate dramatic media ever since.
Conflict also proves particularly useful as a structure for acted-out storyforms such as theater, film, and
TV since they only have 22 to 120 minutes to introduce story elements and characters, have something
happen, and bring events to some sort of definite conclusion.
We are fascinated by conflict, partly because resolution of these sorts of problems is important in our own
lives, and partly because most of us have been exposed to such massive doses of conflict on TV and film
that we expect our conflict stimulus ―fix‖ at regular intervals during stories.
Add to this the international distribution of stories –– which places a premium on minimum dialogue,
action/adventure plot structures, and you have a situation where the quantity and intensity of conflict has
steadily increased year after year until story visitors are approaching stimulation pain thresholds.
In looking for models for a 24/7 storyform like Virtual Drama, it is important to go back to the origins of
stories –– relating significant incidents in one another‘s daily lives. For some people, the most significant
event may have been a quiet walk in the woods, or a visit with old friends. For others it may have been
be a wonderful breakfast in a sunny nook or a fantastic run on a snowboard trail. If you are listening to
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stories related by others, you will either connect with the experience they describe or with the people who
are telling the stories, but rarely both.
When we are participating in the story, it seems to me that we want both: an experience that we will enjoy
shared with people whom we find interesting. Some of us are fascinated by people whose lives are a train
wreck (the soap opera model); some may be drawn to the lives of the rich and famous for reasons they
can‘t quite fathom. Others are pulled toward opposites –– the more different the better. The process of
natural selection is alive and well when it comes to tastes.
My point is that there is a vastly wider range in the content of stories that people find interesting than we
find represented in contemporary conflict-based storyforms.

Infrastructure Working Groups

An industry doesn‘t develop without guidance and lots of meetings. Although there are serious get-
togethers on character and space development at conferences devoted to 3D, gaming, film research and
interactive storytelling, Virtual Drama is so wide-ranging and so interdisciplinary and the global
development atmosphere is so bottom-lined focused that it will need its own advocates within companies,
universities, and the seat-of-the-pants community of world-developers.
Especially important at this stage are methods for producing automated characters, which means
collaboration among psychologists, linguists, cognitive scientists, character-builders, and that ten-year-old
down the street who has rigged the doorbell to make rude comments.

Support for Interdisciplinary Research

The twenty-first century is certainly an age of interdisciplinary activity –– as developments in the
biochemical and materials sciences force reevaluation of our role and future in the universe. I see Virtual
Drama as a ―soft‖ way of approaching any number of difficult social and political issues, by modeling
who we are and what we really want before we are once again thrust into a future we never adequately
prepared for. As many of us as possible need to be involved in this dialogue, and I see no better –– or
more traditional –– way for us to do this that in the development of stories.
The process of developing communities of independent virtual characters will tell us a great deal about
what we need to know about ourselves. The interdisciplinary research needed to accomplish this involves
the sciences, the arts and the humanities –– wide-spread collaborations that would be an all but
impossible journey except for the fact that lots and lots of spin-off products line the way.
As more and more basic research is funded by industry rather than by governments, and as short term
business strategies conflict with long term human needs, the need for interdisciplinary research funding
has never been greater. I believe that Virtual Drama research offers a way to accomplish both sets of
goals.

Looking Forward

- The 3D gaming and global internet chat/roleplay industries have grabbed the attention of
generations more interested in interacting with friends far and near than in being supplied with
passive entertainment. This return to basic human values is heartening in the face of the billions
spent on producing passive consumers, and essentially represents Mother Nature giving a kiss to
CERN (where the Internet was developed) and a "Booo!" to the forces of conformity and control.
- As communication and entertainment become more portable and wearable, storytelling and play
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will become more integrated into daily life, and the ability to multi-task and compartmentalize will
become more and more commonplace.
- Recently, I sat on a train behind a group of pre-teens who kept up a constant flurry of activity:
plugged-in to cellphones, mp3 players, instant messaging and a portable game -- all integrated into
their interaction with each other. It reminded me of a busy air traffic control center, and of the fact
that controllers of my day had to be pre-screened and retrained to be able to multi-task at that level.
- Once accurate language translation becomes a regular part of our techno-lives, the process of true
globalization can begin. I think Virtual Drama can play an important part in that future.
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GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Alien Space ... Any physical space whose fundamental appearance / properties differ significantly from spaces a
traveler has experienced.
Angels ... Specialized virtual characters whose function is to protect the physical & psychological safety of
travelers.
Appearance Kits ... A kit which allows for interactive selection of dram character physical features.
Avs ... Virtual Characters whose appearance is like a 3D cartoon.
Automated Character ... A character which has its own appearance and personality, but can have various other
elements switched by story control.
Background Characters ... Characters who are almost literally part of the scenery, and who function to set the time
and place of a story.
Background Events ... Events which occur in the background of a story, such as the passing of a flight of gulls.
Biotime ... The point in a traveler‘s personal biocycle.
Body Filter ... A virtual sensory filter immediately surrounding a traveler. The filter alters sensory input to handle
complex sensory input or to meet story or traveler requirements.
Bottoons ... Virtual characters which are two dimensional and cartoon-like.
Character Databases ... A set of databases, containing lists of possible likes, dislikes, etc. –– from which virtual
character personalities and histories can be constructed.
Character Double ... A character who takes the place of a traveler in an on-going dram.
Character Events ... Events which are specific to a character.
Character Genotyping ... Providing a character with complete genetic characteristics and tendencies.

Character Incubation ... Growing characters ―quick-time‖, usually in nursery communities.

Character Independence, Eight Stages of ... Levels of Independence from totally scripted to totally independent.
Background Character ... A character who exists primarily to establish time period, setting, etc.
Bodycloud ... a fine mist surrounding a traveler which acts as a mobile sensory filter and 3D image projector.
Bounded Space ... A space which contains few exit pathways.
Bubblesuit ... a full body sensory suit with multiple layers to simulate pressure, tactile activity, temperature, and so
forth.
Character Mining ... Taking all of the dialogue and personality traits from all of the characters in a particular
type/era of story to form the basis of dram characters.
Charan Language ... A private language which allows dram characters and story control to communicate without
the awareness of travelers.
Closeup Screen ... A semi-transparent screen that displays closeups and other views of characters not within a
travelers line of sight.
Community Sample Mapping ... Using live sampling, polls, etc. to actively sample non-virtual communities to
provide the basis for dram communities.
Community Story Flow ... Stories which take place inside an ongoing community of virtual characters.
Conversation Space ... A sensory zone extending around the human body up to about 10 feet.
Covert Character Controls ... Methods of controlling characters without them realizing control is being exerted.
DISPOD ... An open source repository for digital objects and spaces. (The Digital Spaces and Objects Databank.)
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Diversion Objects ... Objects specifically used to trigger a traveler action or cause a traveler to move in a particular
direction.
Divetime ... The amount of time that a traveler has been diving into the history of a character, place or object.
Diving ... Going into the past of a character, place, or object.
Dream Cap ... A cap used by a recumbent traveler to convey motion instructions, emotional states, and general
preferences to a dram program
Droids ... Virtual Characters with 3D appearance and realistic surface textures.
Eight Stages of Character Independence ... A series of stages defining features of increasing levels of dram
character independence from story control, culminating in virtual people.
Embedded Character Controls ... Controls which are pre-set in a character which cause the character to
―automatically‖ respond.
Ethics Filter ... Life rules which specify which behaviors dram characters will and won‘t perform under given
conditions.
Exoskeleton ... For drams, an external support device that allows travelers to fly, climb, and perform other physical
tasks.
Expected Events ... Events which story visitors expect to see given a particular story locale.
Filler Events ... Events used primarily to pad out the length of a story or to stall for time.
Fixed-Script Character ... A character whose words, actions, and thoughts are entirely pre-scripted.
Gelwalker ... A multidirectional treadmill whose surface physically changes to approximate various sorts of terrain.
Genotyping ... providing an independent character with a full set of pseudo-genetic characteristics.
Geotime ... The time for a particular traveler in the non-virtual world, e.g. GMT.
Ghost Objects ... Virtual objects instantly cloned from live objects in drams using live surroundings.
Ghosting ... Observing a dram from different physical vantage points (points of view) without being able to interact
with characters, spaces, or objects.
Grasshopper ... A combination freestanding exoskeleton and multidirectional walking surface which can move
surfaces in and out of a traveler‘s field of motion to simulate a variety of activities.
History Parks ... Virtual communities populated with historical characters in accurate period settings.
Hitching ... Taking the point of view of a character‘s thoughts as well as senses.
Holodeck ... A fictional immersive storytelling environment depicted in the TV Star Trek Series.
Humanosity ... The characteristics necessary for a character to be considered human by non-virtual people.
Immersive Virtual Reality ... A technology which allows people to use equipment to become part of a computer
generated environment.
Implanted Personality Controls ... Controls which cause a dram character to act in a particular way when a
particular sequence of words, images, or events takes place.
Incidental Characters ... Story characters who ―pop in and out‖ of a story, sometimes to shift the direction of the
flow of the story.
Independent Character ... A dram character whose existence is largely uncontrolled by story control or by
travelers.
Intelligent Spaces/Objects ... Spaces and Objects which know their own properties and can communicate directly
with story control. (See Table in chapter on Spaces.)
Interactive Theater ... A theater form where actors (in character) directly interact with the audience.
Interactive Environment ... For drams, a computer-generated space where travelers can touch and affect spaces
and objects.
Intimate Space ... A sensory area extending from the human body by about an arm‘s length in all directions.
JigSaw Editing ... In a dram which uses live spaces, actively removing some element which doesn‘t fit the scenario.
Jumps ... Moving immediately from one dram space / time to another.
Key Events ... Events important to the progress of a story.
Life Database ... The innumerable bits of information pertaining to the life of a single dram character.
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Life Inventory ... A list of all of the major events of a character‘s life.
Life Rules ... Rules which govern a character‘s behavior and reactions –– reduced to an automated system of
situational criteria.
Liftable Objects ... Objects which can be carried by 1-2 people, but not for any distance.
Like/Dislike/Belief Generators ... Processes that generate an operational set of likes, dislikes, and beliefs for a
virtual character.
Live Directors ... Non-virtual people who remotely guide story characters and control plot events in realtime.
Living Filters ... In drams which use live environments, removing moving elements that don‘t fit the scenario.
Local Effect Bubbles ... Patterns of weather and other environmental variables that operate in the vicinity of
travelers. See also Undines.
L-GO Effect ... "Let's get out of here" response to uncomfortable conditions in a story environment.
Magician’s Assistant Approach ... dram Characters send private signals to each other to pre-plan dialogue or to
announce lie-behaviors without travelers‘ knowledge.
Magicloset ... A specialized dram equipment room whose popout surfaces can be rapidly configured to simulate a
number of different story activities.
Major Character ... A character who is the primary focus of a story. In advanced drams, all characters have the
potential to be major characters.
Maze Story Flow ... Stories which have all elements pre-scripted.
Multiwalker ... A multidirectional treadmill which allows for some variation in slope and surface tension. See also
gelwalker.
Mytime ... The time of day at the geophysical location of the traveler.
Nabokovs ... Characters who have had experience with numerous cultures and languages.
Nanoroom ... A dram room where surfaces, structures, and objects are created ―just-in-time‖ using nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology ... Using extremely small machines to perform tasks. For drams, creating just-in-time settings.
No-No Events ... Events which pull a story visitor out of the flow of a story.
Observation Space ... A human sensory zone extending to the distance the eyes can see.
Overt Character Controls ... Specifically instructing a character to take a particular action or have a particular
emotion.
People Zoos ... Rooms, enclosures, or parks where travelers interact with characters representing well-known people
(fictional or real).
Personal History Generator ... A process which creates detailed information about the personal history of an
individual virtual character.
Personality Generator ... A process which constructs a personality for a virtual character using a combination of
theories of personality and other explanatory systems.
Personality Memory ... Remembering various aspects of one‘s own personality.
Pocketable Objects ... Objects which are often carried in pockets and will be handled frequently.
Portable Objects ... Objects we regularly carry from place to place.
Post-Hypnotic Controls ... Providing a character with built-in ―trigger‖ mechanisms designed to produce a desired
behavior.
Public Objects ... Objects which are seen and / or used by a number of people.
Pre-Scripted Characters ... Virtual characters whose words and actions are predetermined in all situations.
Private Objects ... Objects which are owned by an individual and not likely to be shared with others.
Private Space ... Sensory space within the human body cavity.
Psychotyping ... Providing a character with a complete psychological structure.
Reality TV ... A story form where ―real‖ people are filmed pursuing their daily lives under unusual situations.
Relationship Inventory ... A thorough listing of the various relationships in a character‘s existence.
Ripple Story Flow ... Stories in which characters, situations, and settings are ―thrown together‖, as in improvisation.
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Sales Assistant ... A character who represents a particular dram and attempts to sell it either to the dram assistant or
directly to a traveler.
Sculptable Air ... Saturated air which can act as a virtual space or object when a surface is projected onto it. For
drams, one possible method for producing just-in-time virtual spaces & objects.
Secondary Character ... A story character who appears less frequently than a major character.
Senspace ... The area within the range of our senses.
Sensuit ... Generic term for any full-body equipment covering that picks-up/conveys sensory data for a traveler and
can be worn comfortably for long periods of time.
Shared Objects ... are actively used / touched by multiple people without asking permission.
Shout Space ... A human sensory zone extending to the distance a person can shout or signal.
Simchar ... A translation language that picks up a traveler‘s verbal and non-verbal communications and transforms
them into a form appropriate for the character the traveler is playing.
Sociosphere ... A four dimensional globular matrix which represents / conveys the nature/ connectivity of
relationships within a dram community.
Sociotyping ... Pre-determining a character‘s physical environment, food supply, family members, friends,
education, etc,
Spyshape ... Reducing the influence of a traveler on a community of independent characters.
Stationary Objects ... Objects which require equipment to move them.
Stealth Character ... A character who is placed in a dram primarily to covertly influence other characters and
travelers.
Stim-Targeted Events ... Events which are intended to alter the stimulation / arousal level of a story visitor in a
particular way.
Story Character ... A character in a dram who represents a story character.
Story Controller ... Generic. Any automated process or program that controls characters, places, objects, or
travelers.
Story Flow ... moment-to-moment interactions between story visitors and the story world
Story Guide ... A traveler‘s primary storyworld contact in the form of a character. Guides the traveler through the
storyworld and helps when there are difficulties.
Story Mining ... Taking all of the characters and events from a particular type of story and using them as the basis
for a dram story world.
Story Moment ... A 3D snapshot of story flow in a dram over a very brief period of time.
Story Chunk ... A flexible developer‘s measurement of dram story flow over any length of time for any number of
travelers and through any number of layers of the dram.
Story Visitor ... Participants in all story forms except for Virtual Drama.
Story World ... All of the settings, events, and characters of a story.
Storytime ... The time in the current part of the story world.
Surfing ... Taking a character‘s sensory point of view
Temperament Typing ... Providing a character with the sorts of general personality characteristics we call
―temperament‖.
Timesnap ... A cloned example of an entire storyworld at a particular point in time
Timestreak ... Rapid development of incubated virtual characters and worlds.
Transitional Space ... Passageways between one space and another.
Traveler ... The non-virtual person participating in a virtual drama.
Traveler Tracks ... A record of the flow of a traveler as s/he moves through a dram.
Twitch Suit ... A sensing suit that would allow recumbent travelers to move in drams through micro muscular
action.
Undines ... Amorphous areas that operate around travelers or groups of travelers to produce localized and other
environmental effects.
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Dram ... A virtual drama of any size or length.

Dram Assistant ... A virtual character who acts as a personal assistant to travelers for the selection and evaluation
of drams.
Vidtime ... The amount of time the traveler has been in a dram.
Virtual Character Mall ... A virtual sales area where travelers choose various aspects of virtual characters.
Virtual Drama ... immersive virtual reality storytelling.
Virtual Person ... A computer mediated / generated character who exists independent of most story controls.
VP [pron. ―vee-pee‖] ... Short for Virtual Person
Wells Test ... A series of tests to determine the effectiveness of virtual characters.
Worldsnap ... Cloning a dram story world at a particular point in time for use in interactive drams –– without
affecting the original story world.
Wyndham Tests ... Tests to determine the effectiveness of entire virtual communities
.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cat Hébert is a virtual-reality-storytelling theorist who
broke a long-long-term creative writing block in 1997
and has subsequently scripted 30+ sci-fi and fantasy
plays, screenplays, TV pilots and experimental scenarios.
Cat has worked as an air traffic controller, tennis
instructor, counselor/therapist, political researcher, staff
editor for a major business school, educational video
director, spreadsheet/ database / graphics trainer, internet
designer and programmer, immigration analyst, and
theater actor, director, designer, and radio-critic.
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